Managing people

People are an organisation’s most important assets. The tasks of a manager are essentially people-oriented. Unless there is some understanding of people, management will be unsuccessful. Poor people management is an important contributor to project failure.

People management factors:

Consistency: Team members should all be treated in a comparable way without favourites or discrimination.

Respect:Different team members have different skills and these differences should be respected.

Inclusion:Involve all team members and make sure that people’s views are considered.

Honesty:You should always be honest about what is going well and what is going badly in a project.

Managers in a company may not wish to lose people to a new project. Part-time involvement may be inevitable. Skills such as UI design and hardware interfacing are in short supply. Recent graduates may not have specific skills but may be a way of introducing new skills. Technical proficiency may be less important than social skills.

Motivating people:

An important role of a manager is to motivate the people working on a project. Motivation is a complex issue but it appears that there  are different types of motivation based on:

•         Basic needs (e.g. food, sleep, etc.);

•         Personal needs (e.g. respect, self-esteem);

•         Social needs (e.g. to be accepted as part of a group).

Need satisfaction:

Social

•         Provide communal facilities;

•         Allow informal communications.

Esteem

•         Recognition of achievements;

•         Appropriate rewards.

Self-realization

•         Training - people want to learn more;

•         Responsibility.