International Project Management: Leadership in Complex Environments - page 60

Examples

Sambac Energy

Each company that participated in Sambac had their own technologies and tools. In most cases, the two firms had (by chance) chosen the same tools. However, the e-mail systems were different. This created many problems in interfaces. Custom interfaces were created by each company to share the e-mail messages. It was not effective since the software changed with new versions.

In this difficult situation, the approach was taken at Sambac to use Yahoo Mail. Yahoo is one of the most widely used free e-mail systems. This worked out quite well. Even today, the same solution is being used. The internal politics and bickering were avoided.

Whitmore Bank

Whitmore deployed new offices into a region. Each office had its own unique issues. However, with the use of templates, issues, and lessons learned in groupware, the implementation period was reduced by 30% as later offices learned from experiences of the earlier offices.

Lessons Learned

The functions versus technology table in Fig. 6.2 is useful with vendors in that you can establish a common set of technologies that you will employ in an international project. This will minimize incompatibilities.
Resist acquiring new technology tools that promise to do many functions. Often, they represent overkill in use except in very large projects.
Review your methods and tools on an annual basis to see what is new and if people are using the current methods and tools effectively.
Gather lessons learned on the use of the technology during the projects as part of the project. Make sure that this experience is shared with people in other projects.

Exercises

Try to use the Web to find what is available in project management software that is Internet based.
On the Web sign up at two sites that are very useful for project management—www.gantthead.com and www.techrepublic.com. These sites have many useful tips for using project management software and for project management.
Use the table of methods and tools to determine where the gaps are in the methods and tools that you are using now.
Apply the score card for the software tools to the tools that you are using now.

Summary

A key idea in this chapter has been that it is not how much technology you employ in international projects; it is that you employ the minimal number of tools in an effective and efficient manner. Always, concentrate on the tangible benefits of the tools. Do they save you time? Do they produce better results? Avoid the “wiz-bang” features of the technology. And remember the learning curve. If you have to take the time to learn some new technology, that time will have to come from somewhere—likely from areas that need more of your attention.

Part II: Manage Your International Effort For Success

Chapter List

Chapter 7:Manage the International Team and the Work
Chapter 8: Manage Outsourcing And Vendors
Chapter 9: Sustain Effective Communications
Chapter 10: Deal with Issues and Use Experience

Chapter 7: Manage the International Team and the Work

Introduction

Work has begun on the project. Given that this is going on in multiple locations, a key issue relates to the techniques for effectively and efficiently managing both the people and the work. If this was a simple, single-culture and -location project, then you would be provided with guidelines to cover the entire project so as to be complete. Forget it. You cannot be complete or cover all bases. There are too many people, locations, and managers to deal with. This gives you your first guideline:

Be selective in terms of how you manage the people and the work in an international project.

There will be times when you feel guilty because you could not talk to all of the team members in a given week. Some things are bound to “fall through the cracks.”

A related question to ask is “What is success in managing the work and people?” Is it that you do project administration well? No. Is it that you are aware of the status of the project at all times? Getting closer. Here are some measures of success in management:

Management never comes to you with an issue. You always go to them and keep them up-to-date. This shows that you are on top of the project.
You take time to analyze the issues and work in the project—not just oversee it.
You are very much involved with issues and problems and the related team members and tasks .
Morale among project members is high as is evident by how they discuss the project.

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Note that these are indirect signs of success. In all of international projects we have been involved with, there were few times where people came up and said what a success the project was. In general, things are going well if there are no major complaints or issues and you hear the team talking about their work in the project.

From experience a list of key activities in managing the project when it is underway is given in Fig. 7.1. As with many things in this book, this is organized into a table for your later use. The type of activity is given in the first column. Activities are listed in the second column. Some of the potential problems that you might encounter and comments are in the third column of the table. The last column indicates whether the activity should be treated as foreground or background, based on the following discussion:

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Figure 7.1: Critical Project Management Activities during Project Work

How do you manage your time among these activities in general? Consider yourself as an operating systems on a computer. Operating systems perform foreground and background tasks at the same time. A foreground task is higher priority and what you are concentrating on. A background activity is what is lower priority and can go on when you are not busy with foreground activities. At any given time as a project leader you should have two lists: one for foreground tasks and the other for background work. This method has several benefits for you.

You force yourself to divide up what you do into two simple priority categories.
You ensure that foreground tasks are given a higher priority than background work.
You give a higher priority to action-oriented work and a lower priority to administrative tasks.
You can assess how you are doing by seeing how many activities in each category have been addressed.
Over time as you become more experienced , you can add to the number of things that you are doing simultaneously . When you later measure this, you can see how efficient you are.