CS302: Software Engineering

Motivation has personal and professional aspects. Professional motivation arises from a desire to do a good job. People are motivated to do a good job when they are treated like a professional and given meaningful, interesting work that includes some discretionary decision making and some creative design. 

Personal motivation arises from a desire to improve one's position in life. Position in life is defined individually and may mean earning more money, buying a bigger house, becoming an analyst, or becoming a manager, and so on. 

Project management style is the determining factor of personal motivation. A project manager who facilitates participation, fosters controlled risk-taking, and allows people to grow as individuals will gain undying loyalty from his or her staff. A project manager who treats the staff as stupid, lazy, and unmotivated might obtain desired behaviors from them, but it will be through intimidation and coercion. 

The project manager needs to know the project team members individually in order to tailor reward systems and assignments to help them reach their goals. Project manager commitment to helping team members reach personal goals determines how professionally motivated the team members will be. 

There are three aspects to motivation. First, the project work itself can be used to further professional goals that include doing novel work and advancing to new levels of seniority, experience, or responsibility. Second, the project manager must be careful to tailor reward and punishment systems to fit the tasks, being unbiased in terms of importance of individual contributions to the work. Third, the individual professional must make a commitment to doing something extra to gain the reward, either on-the-job or on his or her own time. 

Take, for instance, a mainframe Cobol programmer who wants to move to a personal computer LAN environment using C++. The project has relaxed deadlines and the project manager might be able to help the person, but some commitment from the programmer is needed. The project manager recommends that the person find, attend, and pass a C++ course for which the company will pay. Then, the person will be assigned a task in the desired environment. If the task is successful, more tasks will follow. If the task is not successful, the situation will be reassessed.

Professional motivation might also come from fostering development of association ties outside of work. Meetings or user groups of vendors, professional associations,2 or other professional groups related to work duties might be paid for by the company to foster professional motivation. 

Motivation also has a negative side. The actions that would be taken should the person fail to do their job competently must also be known. There should be company policies about quality and quantity of work that are also included as part of job descriptions. In the absence of company policy, the project manager should adopt rules, with the knowledge and consent of their manager, about punishments for failure to meet work requirements. These should also be made known to everyone on the project.