1hr. 30min.
A8.KCI-3. Acquire the required resources
The project/programme manager will have to recruit the required resources from somewhere and in general, he will have to work together with resource managers. Even if both work for the same organization, their interests may still be very different, which is something that may be very frustrating for you as project or programme manager. There are two planning cycles which continuously have an influence on one another.
Annually, the management sets objectives for the organization, and the responsible managers use these to create the plans for their department. This also includes a resource schedule detailing the people they need. This is the circle on the left.
In addition to the regular line activities, there are the projects and programmes, which also need resources. The project/programme managers must go “shopping” with their resource plan to the different line managers, and this is the circle on the right. Negotiation is carried out in the middle.
In situations where the availability of the resources is limited, it is important to negotiate early to obtain commitments on the assignment of the required resources. Often there are more projects submitting a claim for the same resources, and conflicts such as these are very common but are all part of the game.
When there are no “internal” resources available, you can look for an external party who can provide them. You often see the line manager concerned does this, whereby for you, it is just the same as hiring an “internal” person.
Factors which influence the availability
The availability determines the duration. The following factors can increase the number of available resources:
Hiring of sub-contractors.
Working more hours per day.
Working in shifts.
Increasing the productivity.
Amending the scope.
On the other hand, the following factors can decrease the number of available resources:
Team members being taken off the team.
Holidays or sickness.
Team members following a training course.
Selection of team members
We must dwell a bit longer on the recruitment of team members. An initial selection takes place on the basis of their CV, although in a matrix organization it can be that you do not even get the opportunity to choose. In both cases, however, it is important that you form a picture of the team member offered.
You can start collecting references on the team member by making enquiries of former customers or from colleague managers who have worked with the team member. Try to elicit from them how they worked with this person, and whether this was positive. The selection or introductory interview then follows, and this, of course, has been well prepared. Many managers, however, are not sufficiently competent to conduct such an interview, and ask questions such as:
What are your hobbies?
What would you do in this situation, and what would you do in that situation?
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
These types of questions say little about the individual, who will be able to prepare the answers to these types of questions well, giving you answers that are reasonably in line with what you expect to hear for the role in question. These answers, therefore, are not a lot of help to you.
There are two mistakes you can make when selecting:
You hire someone who is incapable.
You reject someone who is capable.
The first mistake is actually the worst one, and when you make the second one, you will not notice that at all, because you will probably never see this person again. So we have to focus on preventing the first mistake.
You do that by asking questions on behavior shown in the past. You ask the questions as openly as possible and listen actively. You ask as few questions as possible, and interrupt him only if you want the discussion to go in a certain direction. In this way, he will ultimately tell you the information you need to know in order to make the right decision.
Ensure that every time you collect sufficient evidence for each competence, so you can say:
In which Situation the individual has applied the competence.
What his Task was, and
Which Actions or behavior he displayed, and
What the Result was of that behavior.
The first letters of each of the four components mentioned together form the acronym STAR. Every time the candidate for a certain competence scores enough positive STAR’s, you can move on to a new one.
This form of interviewing is friendly, but very intense. It is recommended that you first make the potential team member feel at ease, and later on slowly apply the STAR squeeze. Preferably, selection interviews should be carried out by two people, because the amount of information the selector receives is large, and two people get to know more than just one person. If a deployment or rejection follows, you always have to be able to justify this on the basis of a number of STAR’s.
Application
You can convert the above into actions on the project/programme/portfolio for which you are currently responsible, by carrying out the following steps:
Identify internal and external resources.
Make contact with the internal or external resource suppliers.
Negotiate on the availability.
Make the acquaintance of the potential team members.
