How to Handle People 101
Project Management is more than leading and overseeing the process involve in a project. Project Management also entails people skills which means a good management strategy for people belonging in your project.
In the article entitled To Manage the Smart Guys, Set Them Free, it tells about a project manager’s experience in handling people and how the years have contributed in making her wiser as a manager.
The article also points out three important things when managing people. These key factors are important in making sure that a manager knows how to handle the people that are unders his/her responsibility. These factors are:
Three Important Factors in Managing People
- Hiring the Right People – It is very important to define the things that you need and expect from people. This does not solely pertain to a person’s working skills because it also pertains to the qualities that a manager needs in a team. This includes having traits like being a team player, being trustworthy, and other qualities that are needed to ensure that both parties would work well with each other.
- Give them Space – There goes a saying that if you hold a bird too tightly, it would die but give it space to be free then it would flourish. The same saying applies with “smart” workers. Freedom in one’s work could sometimes be the key for employees to do their job efficiently and sometimes surpassing their own expectations. Through giving them freedom, employees would be able to feel that they are treated as professionals and they are trusted with the work that they are entrusted into. Though that is the case, a manager also needs to set a certain kind of standard into which employees are still aware of their responsibilities yet at the same time have the freewill do their jobs.
- Give credit where credit is due – One thing that these employees need is acknowledgement especially if they did an exceptional job. Giving credit where credit is due would be able to give them the confidence that they need in their careers. On the other hand, this is also the opportunity for them to know that you know how to value their work and their worth as well.
These factors are just some key points in managing people. There are also factors to be considered but as project managers, you have the right to choose which factors should be considered important and which are not. Whatever the case may be, the most important thing here is making sure that you know how to manage people efficiently thus making the project more productive in the process.
Changes in “Sourcing”
As far as I can tell, the first term invented with the word “sourcing” in it is called outsourcing. It became one of the most promising business strategy in the business world. Despite its promises, companies should first think about this decision before taking the plunging. Companies that did not seek this advice turned to a new direction: from outsourcing to BPO (Business Process Outsourcing).
BPO means that firms could easily turn over the selected functions that they want to outsource which is a tad more convenient than the traditional I.T.-centric outsourcing services. Research firm IDC conducted a research which is inclined with the outsourcing contracts that were signed for the year 2004. According to the research firm, BPO contracts went up from 5.2% in 2003 to 25% in the year 2004. The research also identified the reasons why BPO is far more successful than outsourcing.
Key Reasons of BPO:
- cost management/control over cost transactions
- firms could focus more on their core competencies
- firms are able to reduce their risk management
Aside from BPO, the research also indicated that firms are getting more and more interested with the idea of multisourcing. Deals involving multisourcing reaches a total of 15.9 billion or 23.3% total value. Multisourcing is defined as dividing work/selected functions among multiple outsourcers. David Tapper, director of I.T. outsourcing, utility and offshore services research at IDC remarked that multisourcing could be more of a fad rather than a long term business contract. He also added the reason for the lure of multisourcing: The approach that may prevail is that companies incorporate deals that involve new service-delivery models, such as utility computing and software as a service, and this approach lets them test new service models without committing them to a full-scale outsourcing arrangement or requiring a major disruption to operations.
In line with this, the director also expects that vendors in the BPO industry would continue to grow. At present, IBM holds the most number of contracts, holding 21 out of the 100 total number of contracts.
Thoughts and Insights
The evolution of outsourcing looks like history unfolding in front of your eyes. In my case, I view it as such because firms that are determined to achieve their goals are resulting to different business strategy which could be the reason why BPO and multisourcing are now taking over. I think that the business of trying different strategies is a learning process because firms are able to identify which deal would be the best. Aside from that, firms are able to identify the things that are wrong in their company meaning that they could easily monitor the status of their business operations.