The purpose of rewarding people for good performance is to motivate them to continue performing at that level and to ensure that they remain with the business. The business will be able to measure the value of a member of staff in terms of the value he or she brings to the business through their efforts. In the case of a project manager, this is easier to measure than it is sometimes for other staff, since their efforts in successfully completing a project will bring the benefits that the business has already identified when building the business case before initiating the project.

This added value should be tempered by the general value that businesses place on project managers. This can be measured by the salaries and benefits that all businesses pay to project managers managing projects of a similar level of complexity and impact. There will be a range of such salaries and benefits for each type of project manager, and if you wish to retain one who has proven to be great at managing projects to successful conclusions, you will want to reward at the upper end of the range.

Of course, project managers can only achieve their objectives through working with the project team. It would seem appropriate that their contribution is rewarded also, although it is worth remembering that the same team may work well under one project manager and poorly under another. It is also worth bearing in mind that it is the project manager, not usually the project team, who has responsibility for delivering a successfully completed project. The ability to work well with, to lead and to motivate a project team is a highly sought skill within project managers.

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