Global Project Management Enablers - Enabling High Performance Global Project Teams

Transcription

1 Global Project Management Enablers - Enabling High Performance Global Project Teams One of the competitive advantages of companies that successfully develop new products globally lies in their ability to enable teamwork across national boundaries. The concept Global Project Management Enablers has proved to be a valuable method of developing dialogue among project stakeholders. The concept consists of a description of the enablers, an evaluation tool as well as a toolbox for each enabler. This paper gives a short introduction to the enablers. 23

2 Global Project Management Enablers One of the competitive advantages of companies that successfully develop new products globally lies in their ability to enable teamwork across national boundaries. Global project teams are formed in order to effectively draw on competences from different professions, locations and often different organizations. Many of the challenges in global projects are the same as for local projects e.g. cooperation between stakeholders, guaranteeing the project resources and priorities in the organization. The challenges however in global projects are increased because of increased organizational complexity, cultural differences and physical distance between the participants. In addition, the project manager in global projects has to be able to handle differences in language, time zones, organizational and personal culture, laws and regulations, business processes and political climate. It seems impossible to formulate a one answer management solution for global teams of cultural diversity working at distributed locations. However it has been possible to identify 6 key enablers for supporting high performance global teams. It has been possible to identify 6 key enablers for supporting high performance global teams. The concept Global Project Management Enablers is based on theory studies in project management, knowledge management, intercultural communication and virtual teamwork, combined with observations, interviews and case studies in global project organizations. This has led to identification of 6 enablers for global project management: 1. Being a Project-Oriented Company 2. Creating a Project Vision 3. Having Cultural Awareness 4. Ensuring a Common Platform 5. Facilitate Communication 6. Building Trust The purpose of the enablers is to ensure high performance global project teams and to ensure knowledge sharing and creation. One of the main purposes of global project management is to share knowledge (knowledge about the market, knowledge from global knowledge centres to the project, knowledge between different competences located geographically dispersed). Having a good team culture also ensures attractiveness of projects in order to hold on to and attract important knowledge workers. Enabler 1: Being a Project-Oriented Company The project-oriented company has high project maturity and provides the framework that enables the global project team to work optimally. Project maturity is a measure of both, how competent the organization is in practicing project management, and how the balance of power is between the project organization and line organization. The essential feature of the projectoriented company is that projects have the attention of senior management and management clearly priorities the projects so that projects have adequate resources to achieve optimal performance. Efforts to ensure interaction between line and project organization and its reward systems also reflect this enabler. If you are a project manager in a company with low project maturity, you should be aware and spend much time seeking political influence. This can happen by having a good relationship and close contact with the project owner as well as the line managers who provide resources. A method can be to prepare a project contract 23.02

3 containing agreements on project success criteria, organizational structure, interaction between the project owner and the project manager and specified role and responsibility of the project manager. Another important method is the stakeholder analysis to identify which stakeholders should help in the project and who has influence. Enabler 2: Creating a Project Vision Creating a vision is a key element in both project management and team building theory. Studies have shown that a strong project vision has helped to create a project success even in projects where other critical success factors have been lacking. A project vision is also beneficial at the stage where project participants are unsure of what should be done and who should do it. In the global project creating the vision is even more important. A program manager from LEGO puts it thus: "A clear vision gives the direction and leads teams to become more self-managing and thus the project manager clearly becomes less important. The goal of the task should be so clear that people do not vacillate when you are not there. " The vision should be processed during a vision seminar, where the entire project team participates. It is a great advantage if representatives from the strategic management participate in this meeting, so that it can be observed that the strategic vision is understood, is meaningful and is motivating for the participants The vision is a part of the project charter which is a valuable tool in every project and especially the global team. In the project charter the project's vision, mission and objectives are listed along with the team's vision for cooperation. Enabler 3: Having Cultural Awareness Intercultural collaboration may lead to challenges in dealing with different perceptions. If the different perceptions lead to misunderstandings the result may be counterproductive conflicts and lack of knowledge sharing. Working in multicultural teams, however, also contains great opportunities for increased innovation as positive conflicts (different views appropriate managed) is a creativity factor, and the participation of different cultures helps to ensure market understanding in multiple markets. A project team with participants from different countries should together discuss the cultural dimensions each of the involved parties are affected by and agree on how to practically handle differences. The project manager should expand the stakeholder analysis by including the cultural dimensions. The analysis should be included in the group's work to understand and accept differences. The analysis should be continuously updated as the project manager gets increased knowledge of each participant. A project team with participants from different countries should together discuss the cultural dimensions each of the involved parties are affected by and agree on how to practically handle differences. It is also recommendable that cultural dimensions of the team members are on the agenda at the project kick-off meeting. The kick-off meeting can be expanded with an introduction to intercultural communication training in case the participants do not have cultural training in advance. Enabler 4: Ensuring a Common Platform To ensure a common platform it is important to develop both a physical platform for knowledge sharing but also a common understanding of the context of the team. Some of the main necessary activities are: Establishing a common project web where all details concerning the project exists and where pictures and contact information for all project participants are available. Creating a common identity of the project and the team members, such as e.g. an appealing project name, is part of creating a common motivating platform 23.03

4 Creating common context, i.e. that people in the global team have met each other face to face and have had time to create a common context. Common context can be stimulated by some of the processes mentioned earlier such as a vision workshop, common culture training and dialogue between team members about ground rules for the team. The mental affinity is also created by having agreed on a clear framework for each project participant's role in the project. Enabler 5: Facilitate Communication Communication is a prerequisite for both coordination and knowledge sharing in a project. Similarly, communication plays a major role in relation to the understanding, motivation and ownership by project team members. In the global project the physical distance is a challenge, as distance is a noise-element in effective communication. In the choice of communication medium, one must take into account the complexity of the problem you are discussing, and / or how complex the situation is. In projects taking place globally, many of the things that are communicated is of a certain complexity, just as in a situation where there are participants with various backgrounds will be a complex situation. This means that there should be wide use of "rich" communication media such as interactive media (video conferencing, telephone and online groupware) and face-to-face meetings. A communication plan based on a stakeholder analysis is a powerful tool in the global project to create an overview. Elaborating the communication plan will give the project manager the opportunity to think thoroughly about the appropriate communication strategies. A communication plan based on a stakeholder analysis is a powerful tool in the global project to create an overview. Elaborating the communication plan will give the project manager the opportunity to think thoroughly about the appropriate communication strategies. Another method is drawing a diagram of communication channels: Draw first a picture of the organization on a large board / paper - remember to include all stakeholders, also external suppliers and customers. Then draw the actual communication channels. Hereafter the diagram can be analysed in relation to whether some persons are in risk of becoming communications bottlenecks or if any persons are not involved in the communication. Finally ideas for optimizing the communication channels are discussed and implemented. Enabler 6: Building Trust Since a virtual team is not physically together in everyday life, it is both difficult to feel the atmosphere from other participants and to monitor project performance. A well-known management concept is "Management by walking around" in which the leader through her/his physical (and mental) presence shows interest to both employees and work simultaneously to getting a feel of things. This is an effective way of building a relationship of trust with employees. In the virtual team "walking around" is not a possibility. Therefore, it is essential to allocate time for faceto-face meetings during the project s first phases. Thereby relationships are created and it gives team members a possibility to understand the individual behavioural patterns of other team members. In global projects where much communication takes place by mail, it becomes even more important to have an understanding for and knowledge of the sender of the message. A project kick-off meeting is essential to start the relationship building between the project participants. One item on the agenda is to talk about trust and articulate team ground rules for working together. As a project manager you can build trust in your team members by delegating work, listening and taking other people s views seriously and investing in people, to show them that they are valued

5 Successful global project management The top management s involvement in creating the right conditions for global development is essential in order to be successful. Fundamental preconditions for enabling global project management and innovation are: The strategic management in global companies has to pay attention to motives and purpose of the organizational design. Why do we choose to work globally? - And how do we design a configuration that optimally supports the aim of the project? The top management has to pay attention to the resources needed for global team work to be successful and dedicate resources to face-to-face meetings and technology for communication The team members must meet face-toface in the beginning of the project and meet frequently during the project A common project web must be established and information technology to support communication must be available for the team (e.g. video conference systems) Training in cultural awareness and language skills is an important part of creating a successful global project team Managing global innovation and project management is a complex task and as described earlier there is no easy fix-it-all-solution. The top management has to build a solid business case in advance and dedicate the needed resources. However if you are prepared to take up the challenge and pay attention to preconditions and enablers the benefits will be increased innovation, better chance of timing to market and increased knowledge of markets and technology.

6 Ulla Sparre er seniorkonsulent i Hildebrandt & Brandi og rådgiver topledelser om forandring, udvikling samt portefølje- og projektledelse. Hun har en baggrund som produktionsingeniør og Master in Management of Technology kombineret med flere års praktisk erfaring som projektleder. Ulla kan kontaktes på: [email protected] Kort om Hildebrandt & Brandi Hildebrandt & Brandi rådgiver bestyrelser og topledelser i førende virksomhede inden for strategisk ledelse og forandring. Vi løser opgaver inden for strategi, organisation, ledelse, forandring, projektog programledelse, effektivitet og governance. Vi formidler vores viden dels ved at udgive bøger om ledelse, dels gennem foredrag, seminarer og undervisning på højere læreanstalter som CBS og ASB. Vi har kontorer i Århus, København og Faaborg. Kontakt os eller læsmere på