Global Considerations and Trends “Global projects consist of teams formed from multiple countries, continents, and cultures, which crisscross functions, work locale, markets, and products” (Gray & Larson, 2006, 489). Benefits and disadvantages of global projects can be sometimes similar. Benefits can range from obtaining different points of view based on culture, function, religion and time zones. Disadvantages can also be limited based on the same considerations. Team A will provide information regarding the management of global projects, challenges faced, similarities, differences and three trends that will be important in the next decade. Challenges of Global Teams Outsourcing and globalization are two opportunities for organizations to have teams made up of members from multiple ethnic and sociopolitical backgrounds. “By and large, project teams succeed or fail based on the strength and diversity of the team and its ability to harness distinctive competencies to achieve team goals” (Chapman, 2008, week 2). Consideration of language, political views and economic status is an important consideration to the success of the project. Gender, religion, age and other cultural beliefs may have a significant impact on team cohesiveness. When planning, a project manager should undrestand the team members’ backgrounds. The backgrounds of the team members may affect the way the project is planned. Some cultures are very sensitive to time and others are not. If the project manager (PM) considers these differences no one will be offended. Additionally, some cultures are more individualistic and ohers are more community oriented. Again if the PM is sensitive to backgrounds team membes will not be offended. An effective project manager will be able to get the most out of their team by undertanding the the differences in ethnic and sociopolitical backgrounds. “Essentially, every project team must fit within its environment and, if a team is working globally, then it must recognize and adjust for the diversity of working in other cultures and business systems and adapt to local systems and norms” (Chapman, 2008, week 2). Managing a Global Team “Project teams operate in global environments, and because they do, there are a host of issues that face project managers” (Chapman, 2008, week 1). Project teams are all over the world and face to face interaction is limited. Projects can be conducted via electronics; phone, web conferencing, instant messaging, fax, email and video conferencing. Communication, leadership and direct support from the executives are key factors in running a successful project. Clear roles need to be established by the PM based on individual member skills and understanding of the project goals.
Wright, Norman S., and Glyn P. Drewery. "Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal | Forming Cohesion in Culturally Heterogeneous Teams: Differences in Japanese, Pacific Islander and Anglo Experiences." Emerald. 1994. Web. Nov.-Dec. 2011. .
Crawford (2000) suggests that project leadership is the highest ranking category among project management competence factors. Project management leadership style affects overall project performance. Recent research supports the idea that successful projects are led by individuals who possess not only a blend of technical and management knowledge, but also leadership skills that are internally compatible with the motivation of the project team (Slevin and Pinto, 1988; Turner et al., 1998). Zimmerer and Yasin (1998) found that positive leadership contributed almost 76% to the success of projects. Negative or poor leadership contributed 67% to the failure of projects. Project leaders need both, relationships and task oriented leadership styles, to cope with the challenges within different phases of project (Slevin and Pinto, 1991). In projects, project leaders must lead their teams towards completing defined goals with in a fixed time scale. Verma (1997) states “Achieving the goal or final aim is the ultimate test of leadership”. Goals and tasks are achieved through people thus making people an important resource for
As a Project Manager (PM), developing high performance teams helps me deliver projects successfully. Team members are like family; you don’t get to choose them. I have enjoyed my share of, being part of great teams, under great leaders. But in my 10 years of Project Management experience, being a leader and building productive teams of individuals with varying skills, gender, age, culture and work ethic has been my biggest challenge.
Cultural diversity is an essential piece of the team-building puzzle. As stated earlier, a heterogeneous team usually equals a successful team. A culturally diverse team brings the obvious cultural differences in language, dress and traditions to the table. In addition, less tangible characteristic such as moral values are equally, if not more important. These different methodologies and teachings help influence the team's direction. Persons of Western culture will have a different set of beliefs and methodologies from those of Middle Eastern or Eastern ethnicity. When team members take the time to learn and understand each culture's moral value, the result is a strong team foundation. High performance teams take and incorporate these cultural differences and use these different beliefs and values to attain the team goal.
There are many similarities and differences between domestic and global project management. A project manager must realize that what might work in their country may not work in a foreign environment. Project managers might find themselves using practices that have worked for them in the past, without even thinking of the new environment, and issues may arise. Project managers need to understand the differences in a different country's environment to avoid and reduce any obstacles that there may be. Some considerations global project managers must consider are the legal, political, security, geographical, economic infrastructure, and culture implications of working with different countries (Gray, 2006).
From the lessons, I have been able to understand various methods and procedures in managing a project team. My lecturer gave a brief introduction of the topics which are going to be discussed in the 2nd course “Managing the Project team”. I was excited to go through those topics as some of the terms were familiar to me.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Objective of this report is to evaluate the factors for dealing with culturally diverse and geographically disperse team, advantage of diverse team and challenges. This report is presented to chief executive office of the company. Report contain factor for managing diverse team, managerial traits for managing culturally diverse team, style of leadership and leadership trait which are required by the company manager to achieve the objectives on time, research and findings, some recommendations and conclusion. TABLE OF CONTENT Executive summary 01 Introduction 03 Culturally and geographically diverse team 04 Factor for managing diverse team 04 Managerial
With any team, there can be potential problems and synergies that can occur. Some of these occurrences can relate to team leadership, communication styles, timelines and deadlines, the group decision-making process and consensus building, as well as group performance measurement and rewards. Every country is unique and has its own culture, which is important to acknowledge when working in a multicultural team. The three countries that have members within this team are the United States, Chile, and Sweden.
Workplace meetings can be considered as essential but one of the most inefficient components of a corporate environment. Project managers can significantly influence the project performance by proactively influencing and controlling the dynamics of project meetings. This can ultimately generate highly valuable outputs in achieving team integration and consensus.
In the globalized economy, Successful project managers are in much demand across many industries. Organizations strongly need experienced project managers to lead their staff to accomplish their business goals and deliver successful projects. In an increasingly complex environment, project managers need to turn into many roles and have all kinds of responsibilities at each level of management within an organization. Good project managers are not born. They need to be trained. They develop their skills through study, practise and experience. They become better project managers after they finish a successful project each time. They learn new techniques and apply them on their projects. They learn their lessons from failed projects and then improve to be better project managers in the future.
This paper explores the global decision-making processes of global managers. The first element examined is the multiple intelligence that global managers need to be able to address the issues associated with global decisions. These eight IQs are considered critical elements in the decision-making capabilities of global managers. Following this discussion, the composition of global groups and their impact on the decision-making process is explored to determine how the composition of the group inhibits/supports the global manager. The next step in the decision-making process discussed in the paper is that of the nature of the task(s). The type of task can have a direct impact on the effectiveness as well as the efficiency of global manager 's decision-making. The crux of the issue is that a global orientation to decision-making is poised as being significantly different from decision processes use by managers in a multinational
Anbari, F. T., Khilkhanova, E. V., Romanova, M. V., Ruggia, M., Tsay, H.-H., & Umpleby, S. A. (2009). Managing cross cultural differences in projects. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2009—North America, Orlando, FL. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
In the world that we live in today, it is something that has many effects on what if that may happen depending on certain scenarios. The Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds has the information that may help the United States depending on the future that we take on to better the country has a whole. In the fusion scenario, the World élite countries have joined to impose a ceasefire. In this scenario fusion should be a realistic item that could possible happen with the United States and other key countries like china, working together to fix certain issues. The use of the fusion will have major affects on the United States economy and the security of the nation shall change as well going forward with this scenario.
Over the course of my professional life, I have become increasingly involved in project management roles. Doing so has made me aware of the many varied challenges that can face projects and the project managers who are charged with bringing them through to completion. The success or failure of projects, in whatever economic, political or social field, rests not just on the quality of the project’s goals, but also on the abilities of those involved in the project – and above all those who are managing it – to bring it to successful completion. To do this, project managers need to be equipped with a very wide range of skills, many of which are unrelated to the type of project itself. So, for example, a project manager of an engineering project must not only have engineering
When planning a new project, how the project will be managed is one of the most important factors. The importance of a managers will determine the success of the project. The success of the project will be determined by how well it is managed. Project management is referred to as the discipline that entails the processes of carefully planning, organizing, controlling, and motivating the organization resources so as to foster and facilitate the achievement of specific established and desired goals and meet the specific criteria of success required in the organization (Larson, 2014). Over the course of this paper I will be discussing and analyzing the importance of project management.