Pitfalls and Best Practices in Requirements Engineering and Management - Requirements Engineering and Management for Software Development Projects - page 199

14.2.5 Motivation and Morale of the Resources

Provision of resources, training them and updating their skills, as well as, defi-
nition and improvement of a robust process would all be brought to naught if the
individuals performing the activity are not motivated and their morale is not
maintained at a high level. A highly motivated set of individuals can achieve
miracles and a badly motivated team would not be able to achieve even moderate
success. We see this happening on the sports field regularly and history is replete
with many examples.
How do we motivate the individuals? It is not easy to answer this question in
simplistic terms. The need for motivation differs from individual to individual.
What motivates one individual may not motivate another. Money and fear, the
traditional tools used for motivating individuals have lost their sheen. The
implementation of need-based-minimum-wage concept and fair employment
practices have been done away with the capability of fear to motivate. They also
dented the capacity of money to motivate. Some individuals are still motivated by
these two tools but only for a limited duration after which they lose fear. Money to
some extent is still a motivator but it is not getting corresponding return on
investment.
There are many theories of motivation and I am referring to only two of them.
The first one is the ''carrot-and-stick'' theory and the other is the ''expectancy''
theory. These are in my opinion, are very important to apply at individual level.
When people come to work in an organization they do have some expectations,
such as payment of wages regularly, fair treatment, possibility for advancement in
career, rewards for performance beyond the normal level, punishment for bad
performance and so on. When these expectations are met, the individual stays
motivated to perform. When any of these expectations are not met, the motivation
of the individual deteriorates. So it delves upon the organizations to meet these
expectations of the employees. It would be very difficult for the organization or the
individuals to meet these expectations, if:

1. These expectations are not recognized at all
2. The policies concerning good performance, and bad performance are not
defined or not transparent to the individuals
3. The policies regarding career advancement are not defined or not transparent to
individuals
4. The policies regarding reward and punishment are not defined or not trans-
parent to the individuals.

So, it is imperative for the organizations to define these policies, make them
transparent to the employees and implement them scrupulously so that the
expectations of the employees can be met satisfactorily. Defining these policies
and making them transparent would set the right expectations in the employees.
Often organizations do promote employees to the next level, provide rewards and
recognition, and discipline erring employees without any explicit definition.