ASSIGNING PEOPLE TO JOBS

OK. You have your list of jobs from Step 2 of structured project management, you have got a group of people, some of whom are a spectacular match for particular jobs, some less so. You now need to assign the jobs to the people so that the project will get done.

What's the best way to do this? For any job on your list, and for any person in your team, the following possibilities apply; the person:

1. can do the job and wants to do it

2. can do the job and is prepared to do it

3. can do the job and isn't prepared to do it

4. can be trained/instructed into doing the job

5. cannot do the job

Category 1

The first category is the ideal one. If you were to take only one idea away from this book, it is this: if, as part of your project, you can get a person doing what he or she wants to do, you have harnessed the greatest power on earth.

In this category, the person can do the job and likes to do it. Later on, in Chapter 17, we will talk about building a team, and I will say that the key question when interviewing somebody is "What do you want to do?" If you can find people who want to do jobs that exist on your project you're guaranteed a Category 1 situation.

Category 2

The second category is still OK. You're happy that the person can do this job “ perhaps they've done it before, or you know it's within their capabilities. There may be more or less persuading to be done to convince them to do it, and in Chapter 15, I present an arsenal of weapons for you to use in resolving issues like this.

However, assuming that you arrive at a Category 2 situation, and can maintain that for the duration of the project, you should have no real problems. Let me also say though, as a note of caution, that there is a limit to how often you can persuade people to do things they don't really want to do. If what people are being asked to do doesn't fit in with their own personal plans then, in the long term , I believe that you are swimming against the tide.

Category 3

For the third category, you've got a problem: the person can do the job, but won't. Maybe he's done it too many times before and is bored, maybe he feels he's not being paid enough. Who knows what the reason is? Basically what you've got to do here is to cause this situation to revert to either Category 2 (he's prepared to do it) or Category 5 (for whatever reason, he's not going to do it, cannot do it). Again, you can use the techniques in Chapter 15 to help you to do this.

Category 4

For the fourth category (can be trained/instructed into doing the job), then provided:

• you're prepared to put in the training time and money

• and you allow for training time in the project schedule

• and you allow for the extra management overhead

• and you're prepared to run with the risk that it might not work out

this category can often work out very well. In fact, you can often find yourself in a Category 1 situation because you may well have pushed the person into a more challenging job than she wanted to move into.

Category 5

For the fifth category, you have a major problem. It may take you time to arrive at the conclusion that the person cannot do the job, but if you eventually do so, you need to find jobs within your project that the person can do. Failing that, the person belongs outside the project. In this balancing act of matching people to jobs you can obviously get into problems of over- or under- utilizing people, and this is where something like a computerized project planning system is useful, though not essential. It may take several iterations before you get everything nicely balanced, that is:

• utilization of everyone less than or equal to 100 percent

• all training/instruction needs identified (note that this generates new jobs for the job list)

• a feeling that, by and large, everybody will be happy with the jobs they've been assigned to do

CASE STUDY 5

It is interesting to read (Huntford, 1993) the different ways in which Scott and Amundsen assigned people to their jobs.

First of all there is a large difference in the numbers of people the two leaders took with them on their expeditions. Scott landed 33 people in total in Antarctica; Amundsen landed only ten. To some extent, this difference can be explained by the scientific side of Scott's expedition, but there is still a feeling about Scott's expedition of a general offensive whose aim was to win by strength of numbers . Amundsen's, on the other hand, smacks of a raid.

Scott took some people because they paid to join and his expedition needed the funds. There is a certain amount of logic in his choice of scientists, but he still chose a large number of people with no previous Polar experience.

Amundsen, by comparison, chose his people like a craftsman selects a tool. He needed to get through the pack ice that surrounds the Antarctic continent in the summer-time; so, he took an ice-pilot, Andreas Beck. He planned to ski to the Pole so, apart from the fact that every man with him could ski moderately well, he brought with him Olav Bjaaland, who had skied for Norway at international level. Since he was using dogs he needed a skilled dog-driver. He had one in Helmer Hanssen.

The lesson for our own projects is clear: put together a small group of highly trained and focused people (as opposed to a large group of generalists with a diffuse objective) and your chances of success are greatly increased.