PM Stands for People Motivator

Carol L. Grimes

Proceedings of the 27th Annual Project Management Institute 1996 Seminars & Symposium

Project managers face hard tasks every day. Most can be dealt with by using the skills that the project manager has learned (scope, budget, WBS, Gantt charts). When dealing with a team, however, a project manager does not have a chart or other simple solution for managing the people themselves. The project manager must manage the people who are on the project team, and usually does not have any true power to hire and fire in a matrix management environment. Thus, the project manager must learn how to effectively motivate people to perform to the project solution. Have you ever had people like this on your project teams?