Mark Price Perry
Business Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT International
Orlando, Fl, United States
Dear Anonymous, having lived in Japan for several years and worked with a number of visiting PMs on assignment like you are soon to be, the subject matter of your post is near and dear to me. Not knowing the technical details of your assignment, how you will be working with you business partner and the customer, the scope of the project, and the approach for managing the project effort, etc, it is difficult to give functional advice. However, I can offer what I believe to be the three most important success factors - Attitude, Attitude, and Attitude...! I know this may sound a bit condescending, but that is not intended at all. For every 10 PMs that came over and worked with us in Japan, 5 of them on average complained all the time about such things as the size of their hotel room, the lack of TV programs or news in English, how expensive taxis were, how bad the traffic was, how hard it was to find a ham sandwich, potato chips, and a coke for lunch, how little signage in English there was around the city and office, etc. You get the idea. On the other hand, the other 5 out of 10 on average took the time to learn a little about the culture, a little about their Japanese partner and customer, and enough of the language and surroundings (landmarks, subway stations, etc.) to get around. Case in point, I had a visiting PM who refused to take the subway from her hotel to the client. Rather than a $2 train ticket and a 20 minute ride with her other team members, she stubbornly insisted on taking a taxi from the hotel costing over $100 each way and taking more than two hours to get through Tokyo's traffic. After her first two weeks, she had spent over $2,000 and had wasted over 40 hours sitting in a taxi. And it was this way with everything. She was not enjoying her experience, it showed in her attitude, and as you can imagine she was not that effective with the local team. Another case in point, I had a PM on assignment with us that was a very good golfer. During a meeting with the local partner and client, the subject of golf came up. Turns out the customer executive had been trying to correct a bad slice for years. The PM, just in from Texas, asked the client to hold his pen like a golf glub and then confidently stated that he could to fix his slice. That evening the client, the partner exec, and three others took the PM to the Tokyo Shiba Park multi-level driving range where he indeed corrected the client's slice and even added 30 yards to his drive. Rather than complaining about a bucket of golf balls costing $50, the PM spent a hundred bucks and established a great working relationship and momentum for the project effort. Needless to say, the PM enjoyed every moment of his assignment and it showed. The project team accepted and liked him a lot, which meant they would give their very best effort and ensure that the project would succeed. I could go on and on... but, in the end, it is always the same. Have a good attitude, be venturesome, work hard, enjoy what you do, and make full use of the opportunities and time at hand. Have a great assignment, I wish I was going with you! -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International
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