ORGANIZING AND STAFFING THE

PROJECT OFFICE AND TEAM

Lecture 9
INTRODUCTION
Project management is not a one-person operation, It
requires a group of individuals dedicated to the
achievement of a specific goal.
Project management includes:
A project manager
An assistant project manager
A project (home) office
A project team
project office personnel are assigned full-time to the
project and work out of the project office, whereas the
project team members work out of the functional units
and may spend only a small percentage of their time
on the project.
THE STAFFING ENVIRONMENT
Two major kinds of problems are related to the project
environment: personnel performance problems and
personnel policy problems.
Project management is successful only if the project
manager and his team are totally dedicated to the
successful completion of the project. This requires each
team member of
The project team and office to have a good
understanding of the fundamental project
requirements, which include:
Customer liaison
Project direction
Project planning
THE STAFFING
ENVIRONMENT(CONT.)
Project control
Project evaluation
Project reporting
Basic characteristics include:
Honesty and integrity
Understanding of personnel problems
Understanding of project technology
Business management competence
Management principles
Communications
THE STAFFING
ENVIRONMENT(CONT.)
Alertness and quickness
Versatility
Energy and toughness
Decision-making ability
Ability to evaluate risk and uncertainty
SELECTING THE PROJECT MANAGER:
AN EXECUTIVE DECISION
Finding the person with the right qualifications
is not an easy task because the selection of
project managers is based more on personal
characteristics than on the job description.
Broad range of desired personal characteristics:
Flexibility and adaptability
Preference for significant initiative and
leadership
Aggressiveness, confidence, persuasiveness,
verbal fluency
Ambition, activity, forcefulness
Effectiveness as a communicator and integrator
Broad scope of personal interests
SELECTING THE PROJECT MANAGER:
AN EXECUTIVE DECISION (CONT)
Able to balance technical solutions with time,
cost, and human factors
Well organized and disciplined
A generalist rather than a specialist
Able and willing to devote most of his time to
planning and controlling
Able to identify problems
Willing to make decisions
Able to maintain proper balance in the use of
time
SKILL REQUIREMENTS FOR
PROGRAM MANAGERS
Effective program management is directly related to
proficiency in these ten skills:
Team building
Leadership
Conflict resolution
Technical expertise
Planning
Organization
Entrepreneurship
Administration
Management support
Resource allocation
SPECIAL CASES IN PROJECT
MANAGER SELECTION
There are four major problem areas in staffing
projects:
Part-time versus full-time assignments
Several projects assigned to one project manager
Projects assigned to functional managers
The project manager role retained by the general
manager
SELECTING THE WRONG
PROJECT MANAGER
management may still select the wrong person
because they base their decision on the following
criteria.
Maturity
Hard-Nosed Tactics
Availability
Technical Expertise
Customer Orientation
New Exposure
Company Exposure
NEXT GENERATION PROJECT
MANAGERS
As project management began to grow and
mature, the project manager was converted from
a technical manager to a business manager. The
primary skills needed to be an effective
project manager in the twenty-first century are:
Knowledge of the business
Risk management
Integration skills
Figure 4-3 shows the changes in project
management skills needed between 1985 and
2003.
NEXT GENERATION PROJECT
MANAGERS (CONT.)
NEXT GENERATION PROJECT
MANAGERS (CONT.)
Figure 4–4 illustrates the importance of
integration management.
DUTIES AND JOB DESCRIPTIONS
THE ORGANIZATIONAL STAFFING
PROCESS
Staffing the project organization can become a
long and tedious effort, especially on large and
complex engineering projects.
Three major questions must be answered:
What people resources are required?
Where will the people come from?
What type of project organizational structure
will be best?
THE PROJECT OFFICE
The project team is a combination of the project
office and functional employees as shown in
Figure 4–6.
THE PROJECT OFFICE
On large projects, and even on some smaller
efforts, it is often impossible to achieve project
success without permanently assigned personnel.
The four major activities of the project office,
shown below, indicate the need for using full-time
people:
Integration of activities
In-house and out-of-house communication
Scheduling with risk and uncertainty
Effective control
THE FUNCTIONAL TEAM
Upper-level management can have an input into the
selection process for functional team members but
should not take an active role unless the project and
functional managers cannot agree.
Functional team members are not always full-time.
They can be full-time or part-time for either the
duration of the project or only specific phases.
The selection process for both the functional team
member and the project office must include
evaluation of any special requirements.
The most common special requirements develop from:
THE FUNCTIONAL TEAM(CONT.)
Changes in technical specifications
Special customer requests
Organizational restructuring because of
deviations from existing policies
Compatibility with the customer’s project office
A typical project office may include between ten
and thirty members, whereas the total project
team may be in excess of a hundred people
THE FUNCTIONAL TEAM(CONT.)
Such representation might include:
Program management
Project engineering
Engineering operations
Manufacturing operations
Procurement
Quality control
Cost accounting
Publications
Marketing
Sales
THE PROJECT ORGANIZATIONAL
CHART
One of the first requirements of the project
startup phase is to develop the organizational
chart for the project and determine its
relationship to the parent organizational
structure.
SPECIAL PROBLEMS
The biggest problem facing the department
managers is that of training their new
employees.
The training process requires nine to twelve
months.
Today, the line manager provides poor support to
the projects that come across his line
organization.
SELECTING THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
IMPLEMENTATION TEAM
The implementation of project management within an
organization requires strong executive support and an
implementation team that is dedicated to making
project management work.
Selecting the wrong team players can either lengthen
the implementation process or reduce employee
morale. Some employees may play destructive roles on
a project team.
These roles, which undermine project management
implementation, are shown in Figure 4–14 and
described below:
SELECTING THE PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
IMPLEMENTATION TEAM (CONT.)
SELECTING THE PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
IMPLEMENTATION TEAM (CONT.)

These types of people should not be assigned to project

management implementation teams.
The types of people who should be assigned to
implementation teams are shown in Figure 4-15 and
described below.
Their roles are indicated by their words:
SELECTING THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
IMPLEMENTATION TEAM (CONT.)