Motivation in project management

Introduction

In recent years, the focus in project management has shifted from technical aspects of the profession (scheduling, planning etc.) to people-oriented factors such as motivation. This is reflected both in professional practice and academia. On the one hand there is a growing interest in courses on soft skills and leadership; on the other, an increasing number of research papers on these issues. In fact, I have come across two papers on motivation published in the Project Management Journal (PMJ) within last six months. I reviewed one some time ago, in my post entitled Motivation Rehashed. Here, I review the other: a paper entitled, Motivation in Project Management: The Project Manager’s Perspective, published in the June 2008 issue of the PMJ.
First a brief look at what the paper is about. In the introduction the authors emphasise that, “the interpersonal skills needed to motivate a project team are a project managers most important asset.” Despite this, there is no clear definition of motivation in the literature. For example, some researchers have explained motivation as, “the level of energy people bring to their work,” whereas some others have viewed it as being centred on “expectations and reinforcements.” As a consequence, the authors claim there’s still a good deal of confusion about what motivates people. To address this, the paper begins with a literature review and an overview of the theoretical basis of motivation research. The emphasis is on research relating to motivation in the context of project teams. The review is followed by original research on project managers’ perceptions of how they are able to influence motivation. The work is based on data collected from practising project managers.

Background and Literature Review

Recent research indicates that asking the question, “How do I motivate my team members?” might actually be counterproductive because most people begin new initiatives with