2.5P Develop Human Resources Plan

(2.5P.P1)

A project manager is 100% responsible for the processes used to manage a project. The project manager also has people management responsibilities, although these responsibilities are shared with the functional managers of the team members.

Some people go as far as to say that managing people on a project is the most challenging and the most important of all the project management responsibilities. Managers that can manage processes but are not very good with people may still be successful on their project. Project managers that are not good at managing processes but are good at managing people may also experience success, although probably at a lesser degree than the prior case. The best project managers do a good job managing the project management processes, plus do a good job acquiring, developing and managing the project team. 

Small Projects (2.5P.P1)

Whenever a project manager has team members on the project, he needs to recognize the needs of managing human resources. However, these small projects will probably not need to worry too much with formal people management processes and techniques. The project manager probably does not have to acquire staff. The project staff is probably assigned to the project by a functional manager. There is not much opportunity to develop the team members since the project is probably short. There is also little opportunity to formally manage people other than making sure the team members know the work they are responsible for and making sure that the work is completed successfully. Similarly, a small project is normally not going to run into many people problems.

Medium and Large Projects (2.5P.P2)

Projects of this size, especially those on the larger size, tend to have many more team members for a longer period of time. These are the project where your people management skills come into play. This is also where the full people management process of staff acquisition, development and management are required.

The following process areas tend to account for the majority of the work for managing the people on your team. 

  • Develop Human Resources Plan. This process is used to describe the work associated with establishing policies, roles and responsibilities, job descriptions, staffing strategies, etc. for your project. Some of the information you need may be available from your Human Resources Department. For instance you are probably not going to have to create customized job descriptions for your project. Your HR Department probably already has those available. However, many of the aspects of Human Resources Planning will be specific to your individual project.

The overall approach to acquiring and managing resources on your project is described in the Staffing Management Plan.