Program managers, project managers and project office members alone cannot improve the effectiveness of global projects. Global organisations must adapt their processes, policies and procedures to cope with the new challenges faced by international project teams. Senior executives must adapt their leadership styles and act as role models for the implementation of new methods and tools.

The chapter 14 of the “Global Project Management” book suggests that global organisations should build an emotional intelligence culture, promote work-life balance for employees around the globe, value the employees independently of their locations, promote the use of collaborative tools and methods, develop a global project management methodology and establish international performance appraisal systems, reward policies and training schemes.

One innovative concept presented in this chapter is the global 360-degree feedback system (360G performance appraisal©), which requests that project coordinators, other team members, customers and senior managers from different countries provide recommendations for improvement on communication and leadership skills over distance and across cultures. The 360G performance appraisal© evaluates the employees from different angles and detects points for improvement on the skills and techniques discussed in the Global Project Management Framework. 

It’s time to go global. With ticket and passport in hand, you’re ready to evangelize the world about your mission. The global launch project has been approved and your team is onboard. There’s just one challenge – you only have one strategy for multiple countries. The regions are following different travel plans, communication and teamwork is not translating well across borders, and the project management process didn’t pass local customs inspection. How are you going to think global yet go local?

Yes, you might work for a global company but are you globally aligned? Do the local offices and teams within the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific have equal access to the plan, structure, and process? Whether you’re planning an initiative, developing communication programs to employees and customers, or implementing a project management process, local offices and teams will need to participate on a level playing field. Can you ensure global and local access, participation, and support?

In a recent survey, Global Minds Network found that understanding and support of global strategy, team roles, and participation were some of the key challenges faced by organizations when launching and managing global programs, products, and services. Awareness and responsiveness to local planning, communication, and training needs were critical factors in successful global execution.

Companies who shared their lessons cited planning, organizational alignment, effective project management, and timely product delivery among the challenges that threatened product launch success. Causes included the lack of a global plan, an inefficient process, and poor communication and teamwork across functions and regions.

Whether you’re launching products or introducing change initiatives, you need to depend on the efficiency of your infrastructure and the alignment of your teams to deliver business results. The challenge is to achieve and sustain readiness around the world. The talk does not stop at HQ, it needs to make headlines and start dynamic conversations that extend to offices and regions worldwide.

Global project success is dependent upon your internal infrastructure and the ability to coordinate a centralized strategy with local execution. This is determined by the ability to build a framework and process where you can leverage internal team knowledge, manage project flow, and effectively deliver on time and on budget in every part of the world. Not a small task!

Are you ready to go global and local? Whether you’re developing or re-evaluating new initiatives, determine your global readiness through three simple questions:

1) Does the plan and process address global and local needs?
2) Are teams aligned across functions and regions?
3) Is the field ready to deliver, market, and sell in every international location?

What’s your global readiness quotient? Take a test drive and see if you’re ready for the challenge. In the next weeks, join us on this worldwide project management tour where you’ll learn about the five top cultural pitfalls and lessons learned.

What’s your global readiness challenge? Share your thoughts with us in our forum or visit Global Minds Network.

About the author:

Karina Jensen is an international management consultant, instructor and facilitator with nearly 20 years of experience in launching business and education initiatives across cultures. She is the founder and principal of Global Minds Network, a consulting firm that facilitates global market success through effective planning and execution solutions. Click here to see her full profile in LinkedIn.

The intention to build an institution should be there from day one. A culture that is setup for a small team needs to withstand the test of time, when the team size grows year after year. Similarly, formulating and setting up the company policies is important because once the organization is big, it should retain its original allowing for only a few changes as it grows.

In terms of policies, it is important that policies should be set keeping the various government regulations in mind. A legal team should review policies thoroughly in order to ensure that one is compliant. A good knowledge is required of generally acceptable practices prevalent in the industry.

The first step towards setting up policy is to publish an employee handbook with a clear set of guidelines. Establish policies and practices in the very beginning, so that everyone can apply a uniform set of policies. This will avoid making decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Generally, management does not pay attention to this when the company is small. Everyone knows each other and they enjoy flexibility in having individual-based decisions, "one-off" type of waivers, situational incentives and many tactical or on the spot decisions. As the company starts growing, some of them will quote precedence; some will get situational benefits and some will not. This will poison the teamwork, as there will be haves and have-nots. There will even be disparity on the level of benefits enjoyed by many. The "compare and contrast" culture will come into picture, resulting in lack of happiness in the whole organization. This situation will trigger an employee handbook. Now, employees will complain about benefits, which they used to enjoy, but now withdrawn. As a result, employees will feel that the company does not care for them. Balancing employee's expectations together with forceful but fair implementation of policies will become a Herculean task.

The management needs to ensure that managerial discretions should be an exception, rather than a practice. This helps in spreading the feeling of fairness in implementing the policies and practices. In the Appendix C of the "offshoring secrets" book you can find important policies required for institution building. It is important to put the right focus on these policies that have more India centric practices, which might be new to many people in the parent organizations.

About the author:

Mr. Utkarsh Rai is the Author of "Offshoring secrets" and the Head of India operations of Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) for over 5 years by building and successfully running the operation in Bangalore, India. His leadership style is "Lead by example", "build and retain a highly performing team", and "flawless execution". This has always helped him in achieving the right goals by building products from V1.0 onwards. Click here to buy his book from Amazon "Offshoring Secrets: Building and Running a Successful India Operation" Click here to see his profile on LinkedIn.

No work environment can be successful without having some recreational activities. Some office facilities do provide recreational activities. One can have a wide variety of activities at the company or team level. These activities can be for the employees and sometimes for their families too. One should avoid arranging boring parties done for the sake of having one. These parties are monotonous and marked with long speeches followed by dinner or lunch, which leave no room for people to interact and strengthen their team spirits.

Parties should have some team building exercises too. The fundamental benefit that one receives is to interact well with other team members providing an opportunity to smoothen the relationships, which might have strained during the heat of product development. Both employees and their families remember a good party. Attendance in these parties will also increase. Occasionally, the employees can also go out for an afternoon or late evening event in small teams. It is also advisable to avoid any award ceremony at events where family is present, as it will be difficult to answer one's kid or spouse on why he or she did not get the award while a few others did.

About the author:

Mr. Utkarsh Rai is the Author of "Offshoring secrets" and the Head of India operations of Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) for over 5 years by building and successfully running the operation in Bangalore, India. His leadership style is "Lead by example", "build and retain a highly performing team", and "flawless execution". This has always helped him in achieving the right goals by building products from V1.0 onwards. Click here to buy his book from Amazon "Offshoring Secrets: Building and Running a Successful India Operation" Click here to see his profile on LinkedIn.

One has to setup and continuously reinforce an open and transparent environment where information flows freely. Information should always be available to the individual who needs it. This environment will help people feel free to share their thoughts, provide suggestions for improvement and, most importantly, give and receive direct feedback. This also helps in reducing rumors and ensures that people spend more time and energy on their work rather than worrying about things they want to know and do not have information about .

  About the author:

Mr. Utkarsh Rai is the Author of "Offshoring secrets" and the Head of India operations of Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) for over 5 years by building and successfully running the operation in Bangalore, India. His leadership style is "Lead by example", "build and retain a highly performing team", and "flawless execution". This has always helped him in achieving the right goals by building products from V1.0 onwards. Click here to buy his book from Amazon "Offshoring Secrets: Building and Running a Successful India Operation" Click here to see his profile on LinkedIn.

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