More and more projects are truly becoming global in nature. When the project team comprises global work force, it is possible to see more conflicts than collaboration.
What are the ways a project manager can capitalize on the cultural differences of the project team to enhance the successful completion of the project ? Saving Changes...
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Dominic LawProduct Manager| PCCW GlobalHappy Valley, Hong Kong
It is more the cultural awareness of the PM in communications with others. For example, use simple English in emails and speak slower in phone/video conference if your team members do not speak English as first language. Besides, align expectation. For example, some cultures expect meeting be always punctual and some cultures are happy to reschedule in short notice. So set up some ground rules in ways of communications will help. Saving Changes...
I think. keeping in view the cultural differences, we can always encourage healthy competition around common ground rules. High EQ of PM will contribute for global communications. Saving Changes...
If you can capitalize on cultural differences? Yes! With a lot of caution and sensitivity
Only if you can understand and implement these methods without hurting the sentiments and values of your team.
I will say as long as you have a very good understanding and specific scenarios where you can use these differences for the greater good like team work and enhancement of overall productivity it might just yield some value in long run. Like for example; managing deliverables and team discipline/communication could be a really daunting task without having at least a basic understanding of how people behave/expect/interpret simple project terms across cultures. Specially, in distributed teams with geographical/cultural divide these understandings and methods can be used to get the team started with the project or help them to self-manage conflicts during the project lifecycle.
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Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
In the last 15 years I am program manager in multi-cultural multi-country projects with involves more than 65 countries from whole America and Central and West Europe. Talking about my experience the key is to understand the culture and then apply empathy. The first one is a matter to study and understanding. The second one is more difficult to acquire. Saving Changes...
