Annotated Bibliography on Project Managment

Keegan, A., Huemann, M. and Turner, J. (2012). Beyond the line: exploring the HRM responsibilities of line managers, project managers and the HRM department in four project-oriented companies in the Netherlands, Austria, the UK and the USA. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(15), pp.3085-3104.

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This article analyses the role of HRM that traverses beyond the boundaries of many HRM practices. Diversity exists in many HRM departments in many contemporary organizations, the extent of HRM practices goes beyond employee acquisition, training and development, rewards and work practices and ethics. The variations in the conduction of these HRM practices come in with the size of the organization, the industry the organization is in, the organizational structure and the business strategy in place. In many cases, Line Managers are the core individuals in the delivery and later implementation of employment policies of the firm. Line managers have the biggest share of HRM responsibilities. In other cases the project manager takes a large share of HRM activities, in the 21st century HRM practices, managers use sophisticated HRM tools that aid in simplifying and streamlining their responsibilities.

This article clearly describes how HR managers have to understand the people they have control over, caring for your employee in spite of your power over them is a critical lesson that HR students should take up. The filling of monthly employee performance reviews does not help in employee performance, too much focus on form filling impedes the main agenda of employee development and appreciation.

It is imperative to acknowledge that HR managers do encounter problems in aligning their duties to what they feel about their employees. Management issues arise along the way of execution of their responsibilities; it is clear to many that HR specialists are not fully accessible even though online options of communication exists, many line managers do not have the ability to conduct their operations to perfection. It is a difficult situation to many line managers to differentiate their responsibilities to those of the project managers; this quagmire leads to a clash of assignment of responsibilities and those of the project manager (Marom, 2016).

The above article clearly describes the challenges that are common in many organizations, the separation of duties of line managers and project managers. The article clearly expresses the situation that many line managers go through, for instance, the division of duty versus the respect for employees, the execution of HR roles versus staff development and the assignment of duties to employees that in some cases clash with those of the project manager. The article is very helpful for HR students and future managers as it emphasizes on the use of HR specialists to guide and advise managers in project management and their roles to the employees and senior management.

Yang, L., Huang, C. and Wu, K. (2011). The association among project manager's leadership style, teamwork and project success. International Journal of Project Management, 29(3), pp.258-267.

In the execution of an organizations project, the project manager is always the lead specialists; research has proven that the attitude and leadership skills of a project manager determines the projects success. The possession of proper leadership skills and the development of teamwork strategies, by the project managers, assure senior members of the organizations of success. It is known that the true definition of astute leadership styles can be rather abstract and intangible, many people find it difficult to develop these idealities, and this puts the success of a project in question. There is a need for the quantification of the benefits that can be accrued from perfect leadership styles; this will help to show the significance of certain leadership styles and clearly put into perspective the relationship leadership styles, teamwork and project success.

The article mainly bridges the information gap in many empirical studies on leadership and project success. Analyzing the effect of the project managers leadership style on teamwork is critical in that it enlightens project managers of their strong points and failures in the conduction of their duties. The problem facing project success in todays economy is the contractual leader-follower relationship. In any case, the leadership style entails receipt of quality work in exchange for a given reward. In this case, scenario, when actions are not conducted as planned out and the objectives are not met, the leaders take action, this whole charade of activities leads to ordinary outcomes and less benefits.

Leadership styles break into transactional and transformational leadership; team work encompasses, communication, cohesiveness, and collaboration while project success goes into a quality performance, stakeholders satisfaction, cost performance and schedule management (Winston, 2012). All the above mention precepts of project success, teamwork and leadership intermarry to form an assessment platform for the determination of project success. The adoption of different leadership techniques is critical to every project per se, it is important that project managers are open to different leadership techniques in order to maximize on the opportunities that one can get from different projects. Many leaders are very stiff and indiscriminately stubborn to readjust their styles of leadership, this attitude often leads to the disastrous tune of events in the execution of a project. Team work needs astute leadership, different projects consist of different people, project executions takes diverse paths depending on the nature of the project, the use of a single leadership style may not work in all cases.

Projects with high expectations succeed mainly due to cohesive communication, collaboration, and proper leadership. Project performance lies mainly in the leaders ability to be flexible with different strategies of project execution, open-mindedness and implementation of other ideas that may not have been in the leaders scope. This article clearly indicates that project management success in a leader all lies from the perspective of management of people using leadership techniques that suit the people and the project. Project management is more so like HR management, in a bid to create a conducive environment that encourages collaboration and cohesive relationships between experts, the success of the project is just but a mile away. The same concept of adjusting leadership styles to suit your employees can be adopted in HRM in that it would help the manager to try different techniques in order know which leadership technique best suits the team. After the determination of the best leadership strategy, the HR manager can adopt this technique in order to push the employees into the achievement of organizational objectives. This literature is great for an HR student as long as the knowledge is transferred to the faculty of study for it to relate to the ideology that needs to be adopted by HR managers and students.

Loufrani-Fedida, S. and Missonier, S. (2015). The project manager cannot be a hero anymore! Understanding critical competencies in project-based organizations from a multilevel approach. International Journal of Project Management, 33(6), pp.1220-1235.

Project-based organizations endeavor to push business to maximization through the execution of successful projects, many cases the project manager is always the hero in accelerating project success. In this article, dependency on the project manager is not the case, the competencies of the project manager is what is put into question. It is rather important to understand the critical competencies that make up a perfect project manager. There is a need to critically analyze the deliverables of a project manager and his/her competencies before acquiring him/her; this is important for project-based organizations.

The article emphasizes on the use of overarching contribution as a multi-level approach of analyzing the critical competencies that are required of a good project manager. The article clearly advises managers on key ways of finding a rejects strength through the acquisition of competencies that would accelerate project success which would not have been realizable with only one competency. The assessment of individual competency entails that the project manager should be able to have a clear understanding of projects, scope, timelines, cost, and quality needed communication, risk, stakeholders, and procurement. All the above-mentioned elements should be at the fingertips of any project manager. Individual competencies and skill set can be divided into generic and job-task competencies. Generic competencies are skilled sets that can be applied in different projects all together. Job-task competencies are sector specific. A clear understanding of project management knowledge, leadership skills and the environment of operation are highly critical to the proper execution of a project.

Teams are the core part of project execution and implementation as they offer a collective dimension that is geared towards project success. Winning teams should be composed of a combination of skilled individuals, properly scheduled working routines, and clearly defined thinking chains and communications strategies (Longman, 2006). Through the development of a clear project charter, the recruitment of a skilled project manager and specialists, running of joint problem-solving meetings and ensuring that all parties understand the big picture is when project success can be achieved.

The above article clearly emphasizes on the need for collective contrition and the acquisition of project managers based on their overall competencies. Le...