Practices for Project Leadership - Fourth Practice

By Alexander Laufer

Do Your Utmost to Recruit the Right People

In 1911, Frederick Taylor, the father of "scientific management," said: "In the past, man has been first. In the future, the system must be first."

People are the make-or-break factor in projects. With the right people, almost anything is possible. With the wrong team, failure awaits. Thus, recruiting should be taken seriously, and considerable time should be spent finding and attracting, and at times fighting for, the right people. Even greater attention may have to be paid to the selection of the right project manager.

Recruiting the right people does not have to mean recruiting the world's most talented "stars." Often this is simply not practical, and organizational politics might make it impossible for the project manager to steal away the best people within the organization because they're already involved in other critical projects or fiercely defended by other managers.

At times, especially, for large projects, the project manager must select a group of leaders for his or her team.

This text is part of the book "Mastering the Leadership Role in Project Management - Practices that Deliver Remarkable Results". Author: Alexander Laufer. Editor: FT Press.

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