Project Management

The software engineer and the project manager provide complementary skills and work collaboratively on shared activities. The three main activities of the project manager are organizational liaison, personnel management, and project monitoring and control. The "Liaison" section discusses the project manager's role as a go-between for the technical team and agents who are not members of the technical team (such as project sponsors, users, IS management, vendors, and so on).

In the "Personnel Management" section, you will learn that this job entails working with personnel and human resources to hire, fire, and provide employees with professional development.

The "Monitor and Control" section explains that project monitoring involves tracking project progress relative to budget. Project control means implementing changes when progress is not satisfactory (such as training or revising project plans).

Personnel Management

Firing

You may not agree, but keeping a person in a job for which they are unsuited does more damage to the manager, the person, and the project than you might think. Project managers are damaged because they think of little else and agonize over the decision much longer than necessary. People usually know if they are going to be terminated because they did not complete their specified tasks. They should have been told, in writing, before the termination date.

Prolonging a termination is damaging to the person being fired because it gives them a false sense of hope, makes them lose confidence in the person not following through on their described actions, and also allows them to influence other project members negatively.

Finally, procrastination on firing is damaging to the project because the longer the termination is delayed, the more likely the person being terminated will begin talking of his or her situation to other project members and disrupting work. As more people find out, more time is spent speculating on the situation. Less work gets done and the staff eventually loses confidence in the project manager.

No one gets into trouble overnight. Usually there is a period during which a problem is known, but it might be corrected before any real problems arise. It is at this time that the project manager should sit down with the person and talk about the situation. Legally, everyone in this situation is entitled to at least one warning letter which is also placed in their personnel file. This is followed by a letter of reprimand stating that performance is substandard with reasons for that judgment. The letter also states that the person is on probation and will be terminated by a specified date unless some actions are taken. The actions are then listed. If the person does the assigned work satisfactorily, they are off probation. All of these communications are in writing, monitored, and approved by personnel and the IS manager, and are the basis for any future legal action by the employee.

If the work is performed satisfactorily, probation ends. If not, the person is terminated. Termination from a project does not necessarily require termination from a company. If a person is ill-suited to a particular project, she or he might still be a valuable employee. A good project manager will first try to place the person somewhere else in the organization. If the person is terminated from the company, the company can try to help them find another job through an out-placement service or by providing company resources (a desk and phone away from the project) until a job is found. If the person is terminated for antisocial behavior, an addiction, or for some other nontechnical problem, the project manager might help them seek professional help.