HR Project Management: A Practical Guide
The digital shift, flexible work models, and a volatile labor market bring new challenges to HR. As HR takes on a more strategic role in driving change and business success, effective HR project management is becoming more important than ever.
Today, HR does so much more than hire, manage, and retain employees—they are deeply involved in creating policies, procedures, and initiatives that impact an organization’s bottom line. HR project management is a smarter way of working that enables HR teams to carry out their tasks and plans in an organized, efficient manner.
Let’s explore what project management in HR looks like, its benefits, how to apply project management elements to HR, along with useful tools you can utilize in your organization.
Contents
What is HR project management?
HR project management examples
Benefits of project management in HR
How to apply project management in HR
HR project manager job description
HR project management tools
What is HR project management?
HR project management refers to using and applying project management skills and techniques for HR purposes to streamline work, track the progress of a project, meet deadlines, and measure success so that you achieve your project goals.
Project management techniques can help HR track individual responsibilities for each team member, record progress on a shared spreadsheet, create project instructions, set milestones and end goals, and facilitate time management. The main aim is to apply project management skills to HR projects through all their phases and make them successful. Furthermore, formal project management processes and tools help lower risk and increase the success rates of a wide range of HR tasks.
To summarize, strong project management can help HR:
- Manage budgets, timelines, and people
- Attract new talent
- Communicate effectively with employees and stakeholders
- Plan and execute training and team bonding initiatives
- Develop change management plans.
You can apply this approach to many HR projects, including implementing a new HRIS, rolling out a new salary review cycle, planning team-building events and retreats, creating intern recruiting programs, optimizing virtual onboarding programs for remote employees, and more.
Agile HR in project management
Agile HR—also known as the adaptive approach—is a way of managing projects that focuses on continuous, small improvements rather than aiming for one big rollout. Instead of waiting until the end of a long process to find out what’s working and what’s not, agile HR encourages you to test ideas quickly, get feedback early, and adjust as you go.
The goal is to stay flexible. With an agile approach, HR teams can respond faster to organizational changes, shifts in employee needs, or new business goals. It’s about building systems and processes that can evolve rather than locking into a plan that’s hard to change.
For example, let’s say you want to improve your onboarding process. With agile HR, you’d first identify what needs fixing. Then, you’d form a small team, set specific goals, and work in short cycles (called “sprints”) to test new solutions. After each sprint, you’d review what worked, tweak what didn’t, and repeat—gradually improving the process over time.
HR project management examples
Project management has five distinct stages:
- Initiation: The start of the project, defining core goals, and assessing if you have the resources you need to complete the project.
- Planning: Planning what tasks need completing and in what order, creating a budget, and allocating resources.
- Execution: The heart of the project is where you implement your plan and fulfill all tasks.
- Monitoring & control: Monitoring what the team does and tracking the time taken to complete tasks to predict the scope of future projects.
- Closure: Delivering the final product and evaluating the team and individual performances.
Here are some examples of what these stages may look like when managing a typical HR project.
Project: Launching a new careers page
- Initiation: What is your goal for creating a new careers page? To educate candidates on the organization or what a typical day looks like in a particular role? To increase the volume and quality of applicants and reduce attrition? And what resources will you need to complete this project?
- Planning: Break this project into smaller tasks, such as planning what elements will make up your new careers page, writing new copy or creating videos for it, publishing it on the website, and your proposed launch date. Who will complete these tasks, and how long will they take?
- Execution: Assign tasks to relevant team members and begin methodically working through them.
- Monitoring & control: The project manager should monitor all team members’ progress, be a point of contact should any issues arise, and check the finished product meets desirables.
- Closure: The new careers page is launched. Each team member self-evaluates their performance, and the group performance is analyzed to see what went well and what could be improved next time.
Project: Planning a team-building event
- Initiation: What are you hoping to achieve with the team-building event? For new members of the team to integrate with the existing members? For everyone to learn how to communicate more effectively? To build trust? To help the team work together more effectively and productively? Get clear on your goals and priorities for this event.
- Planning: What day will the event take place? Will it happen on-site, somewhere else, or will it be remote? Which team members are invited? What supplies will be needed (workbooks, stationery, refreshments, etc.)? What is your overall budget? Break this down into smaller categories so that you know how much you can spend on each area.
- Execution: Distribute tasks to relevant HR team members, liaise with department managers in question, and start creating the event. Book a location and transport (if needed), create or purchase any required equipment, and design an itinerary for the day.
- Monitoring & control: Ensure everyone is playing their part and everything is in place before the event. Have one or two HR members attend the event to monitor how attendees respond to it.
- Closure: The team-building event happens. Afterward, each team member evaluates their performance in planning and executing responsibilities, and the team can discuss key takeaways. You can also send surveys to all employees who attended the event to see if the initial goals were met.
The success of any HR project lies in the execution—and that takes more than enthusiasm. It requires the ability to turn ideas into action, manage multiple moving parts, and align HR efforts with broader business goals.
With AIHR’s HR Generalist Certificate Program, you’ll gain the skills to build structured HR processes, lead critical initiatives, and make measurable contributions to your organization.
Benefits of project management in HR
Project management in HR offers a wide range of benefits that support the effectiveness of the HR function and its contribution to the wider organization.
Keeping focus and alignment
Project management is rooted in defining goals and guiding a team in successfully completing those goals. When you have goals that are clear and broken down into smaller, manageable tasks, team members stay focused and motivated because they know what they’re aiming to accomplish.
Better collaboration
Instructing employees to “work together” is unlikely to result in the desired change, and this is where a project manager and project management framework can help.
When all roles within the project are clearly defined, the collaboration between team members becomes smoother and more cohesive. You prevent confusion about who is responsible for particular tasks. This becomes critical with projects that require the collaboration of two or more departments. For example, launching a new careers page would involve HR and IT. A recruitment campaign might need HR as well as the Marketing team.
Two departments that often collaborate on projects together are Sales and Marketing—whether it’s launching a new product or trying to meet sales targets—yet there is often a disconnect between these teams. But when Sales and Marketing departments work together effectively, it leads to growth and a boost in business performance.
Tools like project reports and dashboards, as well as clear instructions and milestones all facilitate better communication and collaboration across teams, and improve confidence from leaders.
Improving productivity and managing workload effectively
A clear understanding of all tasks, along with Gantt charts, helps manage the workload of everyone involved in a project, and transparent processes create room for greater efficiency and productivity.
HR teams often work on numerous critical projects simultaneously; therefore, project management skills and procedures can boost productivity across the entire organization. For instance, a European bank rolled out agile project delivery techniques to its HR team, which helped distribute the talent pool more effectively and boost productivity by close to 25%.
Project managing practices also encourage and empower the use of time management and tracking tools to measure a team’s productivity. These tools can help predict how long future tasks will take more accurately and pinpoint over- or underperforming employees.
Efficient use of resources
Project management for HR provides a solid overview of any project and its goals, enabling managers to prioritize where and when they invest finite resources, including time and money. This helps HR teams to stick to a schedule and budget and use resources in the most efficient way.
Driving change more effectively
Whether rolling out a new HRIS, updating policies, or launching an employee engagement initiative, project management helps drive change with less friction. Structured timelines, stakeholder mapping, and regular check-ins help ensure initiatives are implemented smoothly and with buy-in.
Building HR’s strategic role
Well-managed HR projects give leaders better visibility into the department’s work and its impact on the organization. By clearly mapping how projects connect to company goals, HR can build trust with senior leadership and play a more strategic role in decision-making.
Managing risk and accountability
Projects don’t always go as planned, but with project management practices in place, HR teams can spot issues early and take action before they grow. By setting clear timelines, defining responsibilities, and tracking progress, it becomes easier to identify bottlenecks, manage risks, and keep everyone accountable.
This structure also makes it easier to learn from past projects. When teams regularly review what worked and what didn’t, HR becomes better equipped to manage future initiatives and avoid repeating the same mistakes.
How to apply project management in HR
There are certain aspects of project management that can help improve the way HR teams work. Here’s how to apply project management practices to HR.
1. Define the scope of your project before starting
The first step is to get clear on the big-picture details of your project. Here are some helpful questions to ask:
- What is the size of the project?
- What are the project goals?
- What resources do we need to achieve these goals?
The answers to these questions will help you create realistic timelines and roadmaps to successfully complete the project.
It can also be helpful to prepare a project scope statement template that you can use for each project. Here’s an example of what this would look like:
Project name
Accurately describe the project, for example, “New careers page to improve volume and quality of candidates.”
Project scope statement
Summarize the goals and objectives of the project. These should be measurable and achievable within your proposed time frame. For example, “Increase the volume of candidates by 25% and the quality of hire by 30% by April 2026.”
Introduction/background to the project
What current issues do you need to address?
What is the proposed solution?
When will work be commencing?
For example:
The careers page currently has a loading time speed of 8 seconds and a conversion rate of 1%, which results in an average of 100 applicants per month. In addition, the quality of hire is currently 65%.
To improve the volume and quality of candidates, the HR team decided to revamp the careers page to boost the employer brand and give candidates an idea of what a typical day looks like in a particular role and the skills and behaviors they need to perform. We received instructions to commence work on this project on April 28th, 2025.
Business case
What impact and benefits will the project have on the business? In other words, why is it needed?
Deliverables
These are the outcomes that lead to the successful completion of the project. For example, increasing the page loading speed of the careers page or increasing the conversion rate of people landing on the page and completing a job application.
2. Create a timeline
The next step is to determine a timeline for your project. Estimate how long it will take to put together a plan, accumulate the resources you need, fulfill all tasks, and complete the project. Plot out all of these segments into your timeline, along with project milestones and a clear start and end date. Remember to factor in some buffer time in case of unexpected hurdles along the way.
3. Assemble & manage the team
Now, you’re ready to put together a team. The HR project manager needs to carefully assign roles and responsibilities to people who can help make the project a success. This means they need to be skilled in the work they’re completing, able to meet deadlines, and able to communicate and collaborate effectively with others.
If team members need any additional training or coaching to help them fulfill certain aspects of the project, it’s important this is completed sufficiently in advance to avoid delays. To help the team bond and grow, consider organizing team building events, workshops, and meetings with external experts.
Finally, the HR project manager is responsible for managing the team throughout the project. This includes dealing with absences, interpersonal conflicts, and poor communication between team members. It’s crucial that any problems are resolved quickly to build trust and respect.
4. Prepare for challenges
Having a plan is important, but there will inevitably be unexpected challenges and changes in circumstances that require you to adapt your original plan. This is why it’s imperative to treat your project plan as a dynamic guide rather than a rigid set of rules that must be followed no matter what.
If your plan does need to change, consult proposed changes with the project team to ensure everyone is on the same page.
5. Hold regular project status meetings
To ensure HR project management is a success, the team should regularly provide and receive updates on progress throughout the different project phases.
Ensure team members know what to prepare for meetings and what questions they may need to answer. This facilitates productive meetings where issues are identified and solved before they become larger obstacles and team morale is boosted by sharing each other’s success.
6. Help team members develop project management skills
Encourage and support team members in learning and developing project management skills such as stakeholder management, planning, proactive issue resolution, and change management. Skills like these lend to well-equipped team members who can effectively manage various HR projects.
7. Consider using a project management tool
There is a wide range of HR project management tools and software to help organize and manage multiple projects and keep all team members connected. The right tool will help you track progress from the start through to the completion of any project.
With so many tools on the market, we’ve compiled a useful section below of our favorite HR project management tools, many of which have free trials available. You can check out the full HR project management tools section below.
8. Conduct project evaluations
After you’ve completed the project, it’s beneficial to evaluate what went well and what didn’t so that everyone can learn from mistakes or oversights and improve next time. Conducting a project evaluation means you will have a list of recommended improvements before the next project begins.
9. Hire an HR project manager
If you recognize the benefits of an HR project management approach and want to adopt it as a department, hiring a dedicated HR project manager is the next logical step.
An HR project manager will plan and oversee the implementation of a diverse range of HR programs within your organization. There may be someone on your team interested in and suited to the role, or you may need to hire externally.
You can learn more about the role of an HR project manager in the next section.
HR project manager job description
As HR projects become more complex and cross-functional, some organizations are creating a dedicated role to manage them: the HR Project Manager. While not yet standard in every company, it’s a growing position—especially in larger or fast-moving organizations—where there’s a clear need for someone to coordinate efforts, keep timelines on track, and drive results.
What does an HR Project Manager do?
An HR Project Manager is responsible for planning, directing, and implementing HR programs that help the organization achieve its goals.
Here are some of the main responsibilities of an HR Project Manager:
- Defining the scope of a project, setting goals and deliverables with stakeholders
- Creating detailed plans, timelines, milestones, and budgets for all projects
- Putting together winning teams, developing, leading, and managing team members (including HR professionals and external vendors)
- Monitoring the progress of projects, tracking performance, and resolving issues
- Ensuring project deliverables are completed on time, are of high quality, and meet expectations
- Communicating the status of projects with senior management and stakeholders
- Developing and maintaining project documentation
- Using project management tools and software to improve efficiency, collaboration, and effectiveness
- Managing project budgets and expenses
- Conducting project evaluations to assess success and highlight areas for improvement.
HR Project Manager skills & competencies
- Project management
- Operational excellence
- Change management
- Networking
- HR governance
- Customer-focused
- Data-driven
- Leadership
- Analytics translation
- Digital culture architect
- Strategy co-creation
- Develops & coaches
- Manages conflict
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills
HR project management tools
The larger and more complex a project is, the more likely it is you’ll need to utilize project management tools that empower your people. A report by Monday.com found that 82% of companies surveyed use work and project management software to make the business more efficient.
Let’s explore some useful project management software for HR that can help save valuable time and standardize processes.
- HR project plan templates: An HR project plan template can help you navigate any HR process, from developing a streamlined onboarding process to implementing a new learning management system. Useful HR project plan templates include:
- RACI matrix: To clarify who’s Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.
- Gantt chart: For visualizing project timelines and dependencies.
- Project task list template: To keep tasks organized and easy to track.
- Kanban board: For managing workflows and tracking progress at a glance.
- Monday.com: With customizable dashboards that allow visual boards to organize and track projects like onboarding and training programs, built-in collaboration features, and project management templates to work from, Monday.com offers powerful project management for HR.
- Asana: Asana provides HR teams with a centralized hub to manage projects from start to finish. It offers clarity on task assignments and deadlines, helping to identify and address workflow bottlenecks. Features like workflow builder and performance tracking support streamlined HR operations.
- Trello: Famous for its virtual pinboards, Trello allows HR teams to organize tasks into different boards, as well as lists within those boards, to indicate which stage of the process they’re in. You can tag team members to notify them of a task to complete or to provide comments on something that needs improvement. This structure is ideal for managing multifaceted HR projects across teams.
- Jira: Jira assists HR teams in planning and tracking project work. You can align work to business goals, visualize work with lists and boards, create workflows for any process, and gain visibility on your progress with real-time data and insights. The Atlassian Intelligence feature suggests tasks to help complete your next big idea or project.
- ClickUp: ClickUp consolidates HR projects, documents, and communications into one platform. It offers customizable templates for various project types, automated progress tracking, and AI-powered workflows to keep HR initiatives on schedule.
- Wrike: Wrike enables HR teams to streamline workflows with the automation of routine tasks, tailored workspaces, and real-time dashboards. The platform helps you plan and pivot on projects as needed, track progress with 360° visibility using dashboards, Gantt charts, and tables, enhance efficiency with automatic approvals, and reduce risk with AI recommendations.
- Airtable: By tracking progress across projects, offering visibility into resource allocation and utilization, defining repeatable processes to create predictability in your workflows, Airtable helps HR teams build project management into their most critical business processes.
Over to you
Effective project management in HR leads to more efficient and productive ways of working, and increases the chances of bringing any project to successful completion.
You don’t need to adopt the full HR project management approach to make use of some of its elements, like scoping your project, conducting project status meetings, and adding evaluations to your workflow. Experiment with HR project management templates and tools to help you take control of your next project, and lead your team to success.
Learn more
Related articles
Are you ready for the future of HR?
Learn modern and relevant HR skills, online
