Star Light, Star Bright: The Trials and Tribulations of Managing a Star Performer

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Topics: Knowledge Shelf

Managing people is one of the key skills required of project managers; yet, people skills are easily some of the toughest skills to master and can mean the difference between project success and failure. Project Human Resources Management is one of the Knowledge Areas in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and is one of the most complex, requiring patience and the willingness to understand what drives each individual.

Each person is unique in his or her attitude and work ethic and deeply influenced by the family and social environment in which he or she lives. These factors work in very unpredictable ways and influence each person differently. Getting people with the correct knowledge base and work experience onto a project team is critical for the success of any project, but equally important is the ability to knit them into a cohesive team that performs in the manner required to ensure success in achieving the project goals.

Now, imagine you have a project associate who is bright, hardworking, knows the subject matter very well, and hasinitiative; in other words, a real star!!! This is a nice asset to have on a complex project that has been mandated by industry regulators and which has tight, non-extendable deadlines.

I was lucky to have such a subject matter expert (SME) assigned to an accounting project I was leading for a …

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