We know almost all fields have their projects, such as infrastructure, housing construction, engineering to IT. Even the social sector counts for mega projects. Investments to the tune of $1 trillion have been projected for infrastructure, real estate, engineering and other sectors in India till 2018. This will lead to massive projects across the country in the coming years involving thousands of people.

Essentially any project is a collaborative effort for achieving certain goals. Project is rather temporary than permanent in nature. It involves people and expertise from across different specializations within the company or between different companies, across various parts of a country and even between different countries.

As billions get spent on projects, surveys surprisingly indicate that more than 40% of projects fail worldwide. Reasons could be several from unrealistic schedules, to lack of planning and inadequate resources to the inability to manage human resource deployed in the project.

Some of the HR challenges in Projects:

• Over emphasis on technical skills while ignoring soft skills
• Diversity of team members, interdisciplinary or cultural
• Inability to put up an orchestrated project team
• Trust deficit in integrating project teams and managing temporary workforce
• Lack of commitment among team members
• Stressed individuals on fire fighting mode in an ever dynamic scenario
• Working with pre-assigned staff who may not be the most suited for the job
• Interdepartmental conflicts

Key Soft Skills issues in Projects

• No clear directive from higher management leading to unclear goals and focus
• Lack of communication and other soft skills among team members
• Interpersonal interfaces with team members – inadequate, sometimes acting as a source of conflict
• Negotiating with other stakeholders such as customers, contractors, vendors, and often alienating people in the process
• Not enabling the team members to act
• Lacking the leadership abilities to manage the project successfully

Communication Skills, Presentation skills, Assertiveness skills, Negotiation and persuasion Skills, Interpersonal Skills, Conflict Resolution, Customer Service Skills, Change Management, Supervisory Training, Leadership Training, Outbound Teambuilding Training,