The Swiss Project Management Journal
The People Project
Living the PMBOK®
Knowledge area: Project human resource management. By Michéle Richard
to Human Resource Management. Instead of being
asked to develop a human resource plan, the project
managers are encouraged to plan the Human Re-
source Management.
Involved Process Groups: Planing, Executing, Moni-
toring and Controlling
„Living the PMBOK®“-Articles aim to give life to the
PMBOK® Concepts. In each article, the concepts
behind a topic are summarized and demonstrated
through life experiences. Besides adapting inputs
and outputs to ensure consistency, the fifth edition
of the PMBOK introduced one change with regards
Glossary
Human Resources: Skilled human resour-
ces in specific disciplines, either individu-
ally, in crews or in terms.
Project Management Team: A subset of
the project team, which is responsible for
the project management and leadership
activities. Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM),
the most commonly known being the
RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consult,
Inform).
The staffing management plan should in-
clude (but not be limited to) a staff relea-
se plan, training needs, a recognition and
awards principles.
Basic Principles
Project Human Resource Management is
about project team organization, ma-
nagement and leadership. To achieve
these objectives, four Project Manage-
ment Processes are used:
Plan Human Resource Management:
Who will do what? Done in the Planning
Process Group
Acquire Project Team: Will the planned
resources be available? Done in the
Executing Process Group.
Develop Project Team: Can the team be
helped to be more performant? Done in
the Executing Process Group.
Manage Project Team: Track perfor-
mance and optimize wherever possible
and/or needed. Done in the Executing
Process Group. Acquire Project Team happens when the
project starts. At this moment, the
planned resources must be confirmed.
Negotiation skills are often required to
ensure that appropriately competent
staff will be released by functional
managers. When choosing resources, a
multi-criteria analysis can be used,
balancing availability, cost, experience
and ability (specific project competen-
ces).
Methods and Tools
Plan Human Resource Management is
made by