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The Global Dimension of Project Management
Imagine yourself working for an enterprise with projects around the world. You provide a range of products and services for customers in more than 100 countries. Some of your customers are as global as you are, and for those customers your company has projects in several locations. Now imagine that all those projects are using project management processes and tools selected by their individual project managers, who come from a variety of disciplines and have varying amounts of formal project management training. You’ve just imagined yourself into the real-life scenario of a lot of very big companies. But, sooner or later, someone in your organization is going to start asking why Project Team A in Country B is so much more efficient than Team B in Country D. And one of those repeat customers is going to wonder why working with your firm in Country C is so different from working with your firm in Country A. Inevitably those questions are going to lead the people in your company to start talking about global project management. About implementing consistent processes and tools for all projects around the world. About building a system that can integrate scheduling and resource allocation internationally. About installing project management software with a central database and Web-enabled accessibility for everyone. Lots of companies are talking about global project management. Just how many are actually doing something about it hasn’t been well documented yet. By late 1990's there was a growing trend among organizations operating internationally to build standardized project management systems for their global operations. One company that’s doing that is Nortel Networks, one of the world’s leading providers of telecommunications products, including switching, wireless and broadband systems for service providers; residential and business telephones and systems; fiber-optic networks; and Internet Protocol networking technologies. Nortel Networks has headquarters offices in Canada and the United States and regional offices around the world. A CUSTOMER-DRIVEN CHANGE When Nortel Networks’ Bill Marshall first got the inspiration to standardize the way the company managed its customer-facing projects, Nortel Networks was organized around products. There was, for example, a group that built and sold switches, another for wireless, and another for telecommunications enterprise products. As long as the various product groups worked independently of each other, it didn’t seem to matter that they worked differently. But as the telecommunications industry matured, customers began asking not for individual products but for total communications solutions, involving all Nortel Networks’ product lines. Nortel Networks responded by bringing in experts from various parts of the organization to meet with the client. Sometimes it was painfully obvious even to the customer that these people were meeting each other for the first time and that there was no consistency in the way they approached projects. In that environment, Marshall, who now heads up Nortel Networks’ Global Markets Project Management Core Team, relocated to Richardson, Texas after working in the Asia-Pacific area where he had been in charge of telecommunications projects. After his experience there, Marshall had a mission: to establish consistent standards in project management for the organization. At about the same time, the corporation recognized the need to coordinate events and services throughout the company and approached the issue froma slightly different angle, turning to supply chain management for a solution. Teams went into action to identify the business processes, discover the integration points where those processes interacted, and understand what data had to pass from one process to the other at those points. The first outcomes were diagrams of nearly 20 processes, but no way to coordinate them from end to end. By then, Marshall’s team had begun its work at standardizing project management. The team now recognized the even bigger implications of what they were doing. Mike Bickel, who is responsible for market project management standard implementation, says, ‘‘We realized it was project management that would tie the processes together from end to end.’’ He explains, ‘‘Our process requires that the sales force engage the project management organization early, when they are first putting together the proposal. They use the project manager to do a risk assessment and start on a project plan that will satisfy customer requirements.’’ The project management process also covers procurement of all parts – whether manufactured by Nortel Networks or obtained from third party vendors; delivery, installation, and testing of products; training of customers in their use, and ultimately obtaining a sign-off that the work has been done. GOING GLOBAL Project management oversight of the supply chain process caught on in Nortel Networks’ North American operations before it went global. But in late 1999, Nortel Networks reorganized, moving from a product-based organization to a geographically based one with six regions – United States, Canada, Latin America, Brazil, Asia-Pacific, and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa). In each region, someone at the director level was made responsible for the market project management processes and charged with serving as a liaison to the Core Team in Richardson. The team worked with these regional representatives to standardize project management around the world. ‘‘Part of our strategy,’’ Bickel says, ‘‘was to get these people involved in all our decisions.’’ The regional directors formed a Process Council, who voted on all standardization decisions. ‘‘In most cases, decisions were unanimous,’’ Bickel says. ‘‘Very few people ever said no to a recommendation. Instead they’d say, ‘Well, in addition we’d like. . .’ after working that out everyone would support the decision. That Process Council was really the key to getting global buy-in and support.’’ HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS With that global support, Nortel Networks installed standardized automated project management tools, using Open Plan software, integrated with an Oracle database. One of its features is that the system takes financial data from contract ledgers and project schedule input by project managers and combines them in Open Plan tools that do cost and schedule performance measurements, comparing estimates to actual. Along with providing standard tools, the Core Team is also standardizing practices, by combining the best of what was happening spontaneously throughout the regions. On a Website, the Core Team posts best practices in two categories: There is an approved list and there is another list that contains suggestions for people to try. After suggestions have been on the second list for a while, the Process Council votes on them. Either they make it onto the approved list or they get dropped. Approved best practices that have come from the field include a communications plan, responsibility assignment matrix, project close report, risk analysis tool, project binder, baseline change request, and invoice-triggering template. ‘‘The core team wouldn’t have thought of these,’’ Bickel says, ‘‘but as people in the field come up with good ideas, we encourage other people to try them, then make a standard, rather than have everyone doing something different. ‘We really discourage people from doing things on their own,’’ he adds. ‘‘We won’t support development money for processes that aren’t approved.’’ TRAINING FOR USERS To help project managers around the world make the most of the standard processes and new tools, Nortel Networks has provided three types of training. First, members of the Core Team have visited the regions and conducted classes. The primary one is a ‘‘Walk-the-Wall’’ session. They put a flow diagram of the new process on the wall and have the attendees identify gaps between their current process and the new one, and then identify actions to eliminate the gaps. The Core Team members usually describe the automated system architecture and give a fundamental class on the use of Open Plan within the architecture. Second, Nortel Networks contracted with vendors to provide training on the software as well as a series of classes that go from preparation for the PMI PMP exam to a more complex experienced-based class on multi-project program management. Third, the Core Team has developed a series of three CDs that contain information regarding the new process, procedures, tools, and metrics. THE BENEFITS What’s come out of the new system is improved financial management and risk management on projects. Customer approval ratings are increasing too. Just as important, there is a lot of enthusiasm and buy-in among project managers around the world, largely because the best practices have made it their system, not something forced on them. In the first year the system was up and running, Nortel Networks offered two monthly awards – porcelain eagles that rotated among the winners, one for progress in implementing the global process, the other for offering the most best practices. After a year, the eagles went permanently to the regions that had won them most often. Brazil got one and Asia-Pacific the other. IN THE TRENCHES So far, this paper concentrated on the global dimension of project management from the organizational point of view. There’s another side to it, with a different set of issues, that individuals wrestle with when they join a multinational project team, leave home to manage a project on the other side of the world, or play host to project team members from another country. It’s the difficulty of getting along, building relationships, understanding others and being understood, in a strange culture. Suddenly, seemingly innocuous gestures and words take on unintended meanings, and actions that worked well in the past have unexpected outcomes where role expectations are totally different. THE CULTURE CLASH Harold Kerzner, author of many books on project management and a well-known trainer of project managers, tells a story of an American project manager in Brazil. The American would express approval by making a circle of his thumb and forefinger, signaling A-OK. At least, that’s what he thought he was signaling. But to his Brazilian team members, he was making an obscene gesture. ‘‘Sometimes,’’ Kerzner says, ‘‘project managers simply don’t understand how their actions are interpreted in other countries. Even patting someone on the back may be offensive.’’ Social gaffes like these can certainly get a visitor off to the wrong foot in a new country. Globe-trotting project team members can easily make mistakes and misunderstand other people’s meanings regarding culturally distinctive attitudes toward personal space (How close is too close?), eye contact (respectful or disrespectful?), touching (friendly or unforgivably intimate?), symbolic gestures, or the use of terms. But these are only sparks in the clash of cultures that’s almost bound to ensue when a project team from one country takes on an endeavor in another or when a project pulls together members from around the world. With even small companies forming strategic alliances to move into the global arena and the Internet offering a virtual world with instant access and no borders, global projects are more the norm than the exception. But that doesn’t make them easy or predictable. It’s hard enough when project team members speak different languages, have to travel exhausting hours to meet face to face, and telecommute across time zones that wreak havoc on normal work schedules. Then there are varying – sometimes conflicting – government regulations that affect doing business. Even more challenging are the deeply imbedded attitudes and beliefs we absorb, usually unconsciously, as children. These constructs help us understand others within our own culture but create mystifying obstacles to relating to people of other cultures. And despite centuries of travel, relocation, even domination of one culture by another, these national, ethnic, and regional differences still exist. UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENCES One of the best ways to unlock the mysteries of cultural variations is through the framework developed by Geert Hofstede of The Netherlands. Hofstede’s five Cultural Value Dimensions1 could be an eye-opener for expatriate project managers struggling to meet the expectations of both the local workers and community and the corporate headquarters back home. The dimensions are:
THE MEANING OF TIME One big cultural divide that’s not described in the snapshots of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions above is the meaning of ‘‘on time.’’ In project management, that’s a pretty critical attribute, since project success is usually defined as meeting specifications, on time, and within budget. Yet cultural differences range from ‘‘within 30 seconds with no excuses,’’ to sometime within the decade if nothing else comes up. To generalize – even to stereotype – there seems to be a north-south variation here, with northern cultures viewing time more precisely and southern ones taking a more leisurely attitude. For projects that cross through the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, it’s a good idea to build some extra ‘‘float’’ time into the plan. IS IT A COUNTRY THING? So can a project manager click on a country and come up with a list of key cultural attributes that will explain everything? No way. First, even within countries there are regional and ethnic differences. Many countries are multi-ethnic. India, China, USA, Russia and South Africa have several ethnic groups. (Within the world’s 200+ countries are over 3000 identified ethnic groups.) Neglecting those differences had led to fatal clashes among workers. Second, despite the value of identifying cultural differences, placing too much faith in them can lead to stereotyping, which can be equally dangerous. So there’s no easy ‘‘when in Rome’’ solution. But a greater awareness of culture’s impact certainly improves every project team’s chances for working well together. WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS IT TO ADAPT? For expatriates Taking a pragmatic approach, it makes good sense for expatriates to honor local cultural values and practices. To that end, it’s a good idea to:
For locals While it may be the expatriate’s responsibility to make the biggest change, it’s equally important to prepare local project team members for what’s in store. Their life will be easier and the project will run more smoothly if they receive training in:
BEST PRACTICES FOR SETTING GLOBAL STANDARDS Culled from Nortel Networks’ experience, these practices support the successful implementation of global project management:
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