The human side of project management, a key factor for success
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2025 5:57 am
A good Project Manager, in addition to having adequate project management, technical and business skills and knowledge, must have excellent communication skills, know the processes of organizing teamwork and managing expectations, because a project is a people effort and it is the management of people that will ultimately lead to failure or success.
Some of these skills are perfectly defined in manuals or reference frameworks such as project organization design, stakeholder management, communication processes or change management.
However, in people management, the key lies in the interpersonal skills that team members and, above all, project leaders must develop, particularly those of personal communication, decision-making, leadership, motivation, teamwork, negotiation and conflict resolution.
Quoting Pinto and Millet, from their book Successful information system implementation: the human side (2nd Ed.) Pennsylvania: PMI (1999):
«We are convinced (and this view is supported by substantial evidence) that most failures in the implementation of information systems are due to failures in project management. That is, most of the reasons why these norway phone number systems are not successfully implemented do not have to do with purely technical causes, but with efficient project management managing the human side of implementation and understanding how to overcome the barriers to acceptance and use of the systems by their target audience»
Some of the main people-related reasons for project failure are:
Internal conflicts within the team.
Conflicts due to assignment to more than one project.
Unmotivated team members.
Overwork, long hours.
Different vision of the objectives among project members.
(Source: Rodriguez, Garcia, Lamarca -2007)
We must clarify that when we refer to the “human side” we are not talking about emotional or psychological components, or at least not only about them. The human side includes aspects of structure, organization and processes, which can affect the organizational chart, roles and responsibilities, compensation or promotion of people.
In addition to aspects of formal project management processes, interpersonal skills that can be acquired or developed, and aspects that affect the project or client culture, and about which there is increasingly better information and research.
Many organizations pay special attention to their Project Managers having one of the professional certifications related to project management ( PMP , PRINCE2 , AGILE , CSM , etc.), however these reference frameworks have a limited, poorly structured and systematic vision regarding the human side of project management.
Some of these skills are perfectly defined in manuals or reference frameworks such as project organization design, stakeholder management, communication processes or change management.
However, in people management, the key lies in the interpersonal skills that team members and, above all, project leaders must develop, particularly those of personal communication, decision-making, leadership, motivation, teamwork, negotiation and conflict resolution.
Quoting Pinto and Millet, from their book Successful information system implementation: the human side (2nd Ed.) Pennsylvania: PMI (1999):
«We are convinced (and this view is supported by substantial evidence) that most failures in the implementation of information systems are due to failures in project management. That is, most of the reasons why these norway phone number systems are not successfully implemented do not have to do with purely technical causes, but with efficient project management managing the human side of implementation and understanding how to overcome the barriers to acceptance and use of the systems by their target audience»
Some of the main people-related reasons for project failure are:
Internal conflicts within the team.
Conflicts due to assignment to more than one project.
Unmotivated team members.
Overwork, long hours.
Different vision of the objectives among project members.
(Source: Rodriguez, Garcia, Lamarca -2007)
We must clarify that when we refer to the “human side” we are not talking about emotional or psychological components, or at least not only about them. The human side includes aspects of structure, organization and processes, which can affect the organizational chart, roles and responsibilities, compensation or promotion of people.
In addition to aspects of formal project management processes, interpersonal skills that can be acquired or developed, and aspects that affect the project or client culture, and about which there is increasingly better information and research.
Many organizations pay special attention to their Project Managers having one of the professional certifications related to project management ( PMP , PRINCE2 , AGILE , CSM , etc.), however these reference frameworks have a limited, poorly structured and systematic vision regarding the human side of project management.