Chapter 9 THE PEOPLE. At the core of every project are the people. People make the project successful, people cause the project problems, people make it enjoyable to work on project teams – or otherwise. The project manager first and foremost must be able to work through the people involved to make things happen and obtain results. | Chapter 9 THE PEOPLE At the core of every project are the people. People make the project successful people cause the project problems people make it enjoyable to work on project teams - or otherwise. The project manager first and foremost must be able to work through the people involved to make things happen and obtain results. In this chapter we will look at many different aspects of people skills - because working with people has many different dimensions. First we will look at the environment in which the team works. Projects exist within organizations. The organizations already have a structure and the project work is then overlaid on that structure. We need to understand the organization structure from the project perspective in order to be aware of the types of problems that are likely to occur and to understand where the team can capitalize on its strengths. Leadership a key characteristic of a successful project manager is analyzed. Next we discuss the importance of team building for the success of the project. Another core aspect of project management is motivation. Team members must be motivated to perform at optimal levels sometimes over extended periods of time and often with interference from their usual departments with additional or even conflicting demands. We review some theory and some techniques in these areas. Some conflict is inevitable on a project so conflict management is discussed. Since learning is a core concept in project management we discuss the ways to allow learning on a project. 174 The People Before we start into the organization structures let s consider the processes which are associated with Human Resources in the PMBOK Guide. Figure 1 shows the processes Organization Structure for Projects In any organization there is an existing organization structure. Traditionally companies have been organized along functional lines but recently more companies have been moving toward an organization which is based on groups working on .
