Project Human Resource Management - Acquire Project Team

This process confirms human resource availability and obtains the team necessary to complete the project activities. It outlines and guides the teams selection and responsibility assignment to obtain a successful team. The control over selection can be controlled by collective bargaining agreements, use of subcontractors personnel, matrix project environment, internal or external reporting relationships or other various reasons. If you don't acquire the team on time then it throws off your schedule, budget, customer satisfaction, quality and risks.

Let's take a look at the Inputs, Tools and Techniques and Outputs of this process:

1) Human Resource Management Plan

• Guides how project human resources should be identified, staffed, managed, and released and includes the following: 
• Roles and responsibilities defining the positions, and competencies that the project demands
• Project organization charts - number of people needed for the project
• Staffing management plan - time periods each team member is needed

2) Enterprise Environmental Factors

• May include:
• Existing information - availability, competency levels, prior experience, interest in working on the project and their cost rate
• Personnel administration policies
• Organizational structure
• Colocation or multiple location

3) Organizational Process Assets

• May include:
• Organizational standard policies, processes and procedures

4) Pre-assignment

• Being pre-assigned means you were selected ahead of the project

5) Negotiation 

• You can negotiate staff assignments on projects with functional managers, project management teams, external organizations

6) Acquisition

• If you don't have the staff needed you can outsource them. 

7) Virtual Teams

• Groups of people with a shared goal who fulfill their roles with little or no time spent meeting face to face. 
• You can do the following with virtual teams:
• Form teams across widespread geographical areas
• Add special expertise to the team from other areas
• Incorporate employees who work from home office
• Form teams of people who work different shifts, hours, days across time zones
• Include people with disabilities and mobile limitations
• Move forward with projects that were ignored due to travel expenses
• Watch out for:
• Misunderstandings
• feelings of isolation
• difficulty sharing knowledge and experience
• cost of appropriate technology

8) Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

• Criteria for selection of staff can be helpful when using multi-criteria decision analysis tool
• Availability - do they have the time to work on the project?
• Cost - can you afford to add them?
• Experience - do they have experience with the project?
• Ability - are they competent? 
• Knowledge - do they have the knowledge needed to help with the project? 
• Skills - do they have the skills needed to help?
• Attitude - can they works with others?
• International factors - location and time zone considerations

9) Project Staff Assignments

• When the people are assigned to the project you need to document all the details of the names, memoirs, org charts and schedules. 

10) Resource Calendars

• Documents the time periods that each project team member is available to work on the project. 

11) Project Management Plan Updates

• Updates include:
• Human resource management plan
• Project management plan

Source: PMBOK 5th ed.