Research Paper: Project Management Human Resource Training

Project Management

Human Resource Training in Project Management

The case analysis presented in Workplace learning to improve it project management (Damare, 2008) of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) illustrates how effective team-based and individual training can be in streamlining project management performance across a large, diverse public health organization. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate how human resource training within project management environments accelerates strategic and tactical objective performance, in addition to reducing the costs to attain these results. The many benefits to long-term learning and morale are also evaluated in this analysis (Crawford, Leonard, Jones, 2011).

Best Practices in Human Resource Training within Project Management

The study of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health illustrates several critical best practices for human resource training in project management environments (Damare, 2008). Additional literature review illustrates how long-term learning is being achieved in project management curriculum and learning scenarios by incorporating scaffolding, or the development of individualized learning programs to ensure each professional has a program aligned to their unique strengths and weaknesses (McNamara, Parry, Lee, Pitt-Catsouphes, 2012). In conjunction with scaffolding, there reliance on curriculum specifically designed to ensure a high degree of autonomy, mastery and purpose throughout the learning cycle is critically important in project management-based learning scenarios and programs (McNamara, Parry, Lee, Pitt-Catsouphes, 2012). With these learning best practices anchoring human resources training in project management environments, the specifics of how the core concepts of project management itself are defined.

The first and most significant best practice is defining a teaching framework across the entire project life cycle, encompassing concept, planning, implementation and closing, which are the key phases as defined in the DMH study (Damare, 2008). The project life cycle is multidimensional, incorporating roles from project management, business analysts and contract managers. All three of these have unique and differentiated critical success factors that they have in creating, collaborating on and completing projects (Dexter, 2010). In addition, each of these teams have completely different metrics they are evaluated on, different career paths, and completely different strategies for getting work done (Little, 2011). All of these differences in expectations, perceptions of projects, and program responsibilities can only be unified in a common direction through concerted, continual training in project management (Dexter, 2010).

The second best practice of human resource training within project management environments is to create a common taxonomy of how knowledge is captured, used and propagated or shared throughout an organization and its extended ecosystem of partners (Little, 2011). This is one of the best practices of human resource training on several levels, the most valuable being the ability of shared knowledge and insight to create shared expectations and trust (Crawford, Leonard, Jones, 2011). As individual departments share knowledge, insight and experience trust becomes an accelerator across the entire organization, making collaborative benefits accrue in each phase of the project life cycle… [END OF PREVIEW]