work, March. pp. 36-39. prevent attrition and mitigate its impact, if it oc3. Kroll, K. (2007). Small Projects, Big Results. PM Netcurs. The motivational techniques described in the work, July. pp. 30-33. last section can control attrition to a large extent. 4. Larson, R., & Larson, E. (2004). The Critical Steps to Manager can additionally apply the following techManaging Small Projects. PMI Global Congress – Praniques – gue. 5.
As a first step, the manager should avoid choosing team members with the same last name! Say, if the team has a husband-wife combination then there is a very high possibility that both will leave together, in case one leaves the organization to move outside the city. Insist on team members holding regular knowledge sharing sessions within the team about their modules. Hence, if one member leaves then others are still knowledgeable about his work, which reduces the impact of attrition. Manager should also formally groom backups for team members. In large teams, the managers have the luxury of having additional resources who are earmarked as backups. Unfortunately, small teams are always constrained of resources and hence cannot plan a backup within the team. The manager of small team should work in tandem with a manager of a large team in the organization, to earmark an additional resource within that large team as a backup for his team. That engineer should be regularly involved in the project functions of the small team to be aware of the tasks being performed by other members. E.g., he can act as project design/ code/test-cases reviewer. Hence, if a member of small team leaves then he is ready to join the team and takeover the leaving member’s module fast. However, if the company itself is small/startup then the manager cannot fallback on another large team for creating backups. In such a case, the company should offload some project tasks to a services company. Hence, the services company’s resource can act as a backup for the small team. REFERENCES 1. 2.
Baker, B. (2009). In praise of small teams. PM Network, March. Ladika, S. (2008). Bigger isn’t always Better. PM Net-
Fuezery, G. (1998). Managing Small Projects. PM Network, July. 6. Rowe, S. (2007). Managing and Leading Small Projects. PMI Global Congress – Atlanta. 7. Rincon, I. (2006). Mini and Micro projects: Are the principles of project management appropriate for managing small companies or small projects? PMI Global Congress – Madrid. 8. Myers, I., & Myers P. (1995), Gifts differing: Understanding personality type. Davies-Black Publishing. 9. Jung, C. (1971). "Psychological Types". Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 6. Princeton University Press. 10. Damle, P. (2010). Application of select tools of psychology for effective project management. PMI India Conference 2010, Mumbai, India.
Vimal Kumar Khanna is Founder and Managing Director of “mCalibre Technologies”, a software product company. He has over 28 years industry experience and has won multiple international honors. He is listed in “Marquis Who’s Who in the World”. He is also among 30 select experts in the world on “IEEE Communications” (pub. New York) Editorial Board (invited honorary position). His multiple independentlywritten papers have been published in leading international journals/conferences, including PMI North America, APAC & EMEA Global Congresses; multiple “PMI Asia Pacific e-Link” issues; PMI India Conferences 2010, 2011 & 2012. He has been interviewed in “PM Network” magazine.
Feedback: pminicmag@pminorthindia.org, Prashant@pminorthindia.org
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