Managing People in Projects for High Performance: Behavioural Approach to Productive Project Teams

This book examines practically useful management and people skills, and looks at competencies from the micro, meso, and macro- lens. At the micro- level, the book examines a range of competencies needed for managing oneself and others in a project environment, such as personality style, cognitive skills, communication skills, and emotional intelligence. The book will also includes discussion on strategies for managing emotions of self and others effectively. At the meso- level, the book discusses basic structure, characteristics, and importance of different types of teams such as virtual teams, project teams, domain specific teams, and heavy-weight teams in organizations to enhance productivity and delegate accountability. It also explores team processes, including structure, culture, supporting systems, performance and incentive systems, and their impact on team productivity. In addition, the book includes a discourse on skills to manage a multi-generational workforce (a combination of baby boomers, X and Y generation), a challenge faced by project managers in current scenario. Finally, at the macro- level, the book captures the role of culture in a project context; emerging leadership styles in projects, maintaining relationship with internal and external stakeholders; role of power, politics and influence in relationship building (social networks and social capital); and managing conflicts and negotiations.

The book presents ethical considerations in managing projects; relationship between projects and sustainability; societal responsibilities of projects; advantages and disadvantages of forms of control in projects (behaviour and outcome control). It is positioned primarily for practitioners although it is a relevant and useful resource and reference for academics and students of project management and management studies courses.

About the Author

Upasna A Agarwal is a Professor in Organization Behavior and Human Resource Management at National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai, India. She obtained her PhD from IIT Bombay. Upasna is identified as top 2% researchers of the world , in research released by Standford. was recognized as “Emerging Psychologist of India” by National Academy of Psychology (NAOP). She has been chosen as one of the leading achievers from around the world and her name is included in Marquis Who's Who in the World® 2016 -33rd Edition. In 2017, Upasna was awarded the AIMS International Young Woman Management Researcher Award by Association of Indian Management Scholars. Her areas of research interest are employment relationship (psychological contract, team and leader-member dynamics), effective work state (emotions, trust, fairness, bullying, well-being and happiness), work family integration, in-role and extra-role work behaviours (work engagement, innovativeness work behaviour), and sustainable consumer behaviour.

Karuna Jain is Professor of Technology & Operations Management at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. She also served as the Director of National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai. Prof. Jain started her career as an Indian Engineering Service Cadre officer. With a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Management from IIT Kharagpur, followed by Post Doctorate Fellow from University of Calgary, Canada, Prof. Jain embarked upon an academic career at IIT Bombay in 1986. With her interwoven technical and managerial expertise, she has served in numerous distinguished positions of academic, professional and government bodies in various capacities. She has made significant contributions to education, research and development of professionals in the field of project management. Most importantly, she is a founding member of the Academic Advisory Group (AAG) of the Project Management Institute (India), and served as its Chairperson from 2010 to 2017. In recognition of her inspired leadership of, sustained excellence in, and valuable contributions to the field of Project Management, PMI (India) conferred the “Distinguished Fellow” award on her. International Association of Management of Technology (IAMOT) Board has conferred upon her the “Distinguished Service Achievement” Award in 2019 for exemplary service in the area of MOT. Her research interest areas are project leadership, resource constraint project scheduling, project driven supply chain management and project resilience, strategic management of technology, patent analytics for technology related decisions and intellectual property management.

Vittal Anantatmula is Professor at College of Business, Western Carolina University, USA, and is a recipient of the University Scholar and Graduate Teaching Awards. He is also Global Guest Professor at Keio University, Japan and a visiting professor at Skema Business School, France for directing PhD students. He was chosen in Melbourne as Endeavor Executive Fellow and worked with the School of Property, Construction, and Project Management, RMIT, Melbourne in 2018. He is a member of the Academic Insight Team of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and served a director of the PMI Global Accreditation Centre in the past. He has extensive experience in academics and industry. Dr. Anantatmula has authored more than 80 publications. He received MS and PhD degrees from The George Washington University and Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Andhra University, India.

Shankar Sankaran is Professor of Organizational Project Management at the School of Built Environment, Faculty of Design Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia. At UTS he is a Member of the Centre for Informatics Research and Innovation (CiRI), Centre for Business and Social Innovation (CBSI) and UTS Megaproject Research Team. Shankar is a member of the international editorial board of the International Journal of Project Management, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, and the Editorial Board of Project Management Research and Practice and Systems. He is the current President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences and founded its Action Research SIG. Shankar is a Vice Chair of the Board of the Global Accrediation Centre of the Project Management Institute. He has co-authored 1 book, co-edited 5 books, and is in the process of co-editing a book and co-authoring another. He has to his credit 17 book chapters and has published/presented more than 140 refereed papers. He has supervised 35 doctoral students to completion. He was a co-recipient of International Project Management Associations' IPMA Research Award for the research project 'Balanced Leadership in Projects'. He received the PMI Team Researcher of the Year Award in 2022.