How to Make High Performers Out of Everyone
From the Eye on the Workforce Blog
by Joe Wynne
Workforce management is a key part of project success, but project managers often find it difficult to get trustworthy information on what really works. From interpersonal interactions to big workforce issues we'll look the latest research and proven techniques to find the most effective solutions for your projects.
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Your IT organization should have replaced job descriptions with some kind of competency management system by now. Of course, you should have gotten the entire raise you expected and that didn’t happen. Even if you do manage the workforce using competencies rather than job description “activities,” you may not be taking advantage of its full power.
Every function has an individual that is a high-performer. The individual who makes it look easy day after day.
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The analyst who fully defines needs fastest
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The project manager who writes the most persuasive business case
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The lead developer who somehow always rallies the team to meet the deadlines and maintains their respect
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone on the workforce was like this? Yes it would because studies have shown that high performers can be as much as 20 times more productive than the average worker. Imaging 20 times more productivity from the existing workforce or 20 times fewer workers doing the same amount of work. OK, your results may vary, but you would benefit greatly from a workforce jammed full of high-performers.
The key is to find out exactly what the high performers are doing – how they are able to reach the competency level. But you can’t make this really work unless you have established workforce management by competencies. It gives you the language you need to define and transfer the knowledge. More in my next post, including related project management tactics.
Posted on: March 31, 2008 07:59 AM |
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Comments (1)
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Robert Penn
Sr. Project Manager
Alexandria, Va, United States
In my experience, high performance has come from a combination of motivation and competence so that even when team members have equivalent compentencies, the most motivated individual still outperforms the others. Unfortunately, what motivates one person doesn't necessarily motivate another, and, more money is often not all that effective as a motivator (but lack of money or a perception of pay disparity is a strong demotivator). The motivational challenge is to know your people well enough to be able to identify what motivates each one (technical challenge, peer recognition, management recognition, training opportunities, etc.) and do what you can to provide it for them.
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