5.5.3 Human Resources

It is vital to have the right people working on a project. The wrong people with not as much skill or expertise could cause a project to last months longer, if not fail. But of course human resources cost money too; what is better value for money, hiring the best (and most expensive) engineers and technicians to work on a project which would make the project manager very confident about the completion of the project and in a reasonable timescale, or pay less for not such good engineers and having the risk of the project failing or taking too long?

The management of human resources is extremely important, but even if this is done well, other human resource issues can lead a project to failure. What if the chief engineer becomes ill? What if he dies? Can he be replaced? There are some projects where the chief designer or engineer is such a specialist in that particular field that he is irreplaceable.

There are also instances of a chief engineer dying midway through a project who in some case can be irreplaceable if that person is a leading expert or the only person with certain skills and/or knowledge. This of course is down to luck, which makes it impossible to stop or plan for. However, if there is strong opposition to the project the loss of a human resource is not always down to luck. As in the case with the world's first sewing machine, the inventor did not pursue with this after his factory was attacked and he received death threats. Although a similar situation is unlikely from competitors today, other groups of people such as animal rights protestors have used similar tactics against scientists working in animal research. The organisation or individuals in charge of the project must consider this and take necessary security precautions to ensure the safety of their staff, in particular someone who has irreplaceable skills or knowledge as they would be most at risk.