International Project Management: Leadership in Complex Environments

2017-07-07 02:10:07

Project Management For International Projects

Let’s turn to a discussion of managing projects on an international level. There are multiple cultures involved. Knowledge is required at the headquarters and local levels. The project leaders have to have management contacts at both the headquarters and local levels. The project leader role has to be able to be nice and firm. This means that project leadership requires both the good guy and bad guy roles. Some people call these “white hat” and “black hat” roles, respectively.

It is important to have two project leaders for any substantial international project.

It should now be clear why you want to have multiple project leaders—both overall and at the local level. Figure 3.1 gives some of the reasons and benefits for multiple project leaders. Some of you in reading this are likely to say that it is unworkable because there is a lack of accountability. You achieve accountability by enforcing the rule that at any time one person is in charge. The benefits of having multiple project leaders are overwhelming. A benefit that is not listed in the table is that there is a cumulative effect. That is, as you employ the approach,

Figure 3.1: Benefits of Multiple Project Leaders in an International Project

Knowledge of the work and projects is widened.

Junior project leaders advance their skills at a more rapid pace.

There is more commonality in the approach to project work.

Management Structure For International Projects

In this book we will consider a management structure and an administrative structure. The management structure pertains to how the international projects are directed and managed. The administrative structure deals with specific techniques involved in the projects. Examples of administrative structure include project reporting, standardized project files, project communications, project templates, issues management, and lessons learned coordination. These topics will be addressed in the following three chapters.

A two-tiered management oversight approach provides flexibility.

An effective project management structure has proven to be the use of a steering committee. A steering committee is a management committee that oversees substantial projects. In international projects there is often more complexity and organization structure to deal with. It is for these reasons that two levels of steering committees are recommended. One is the traditional steering committee. The second committee, to which the steering committee reports, is the executive committee. Figure 3.2 lists the duties of the steering committees and their members along with the respective missions.

Figure 3.2: Activities and Makeup of International Project Steering Committees

Why have two committees? First, if there is only one committee, there is less flexibility for placing management. Both middle managers and upper level managers have to be on the same committee. Politically, this can cause the upper level managers to bail up and be replaced by subordinates. There is no middle link between upper management and the project team—issues that the team cannot cope with are taken up to the steering committee. If there are two levels, there is the opportunity to sort out issues without going to upper management in the executive committee. Two committees can provide political cover for the project team as well.

The two committees also give project flexibility. If there is one thing that international projects need, it is flexibility. You can organize the lower-level committee by region, country, function, or activity. How you organize it can support your cultural goals in the project. For example, if you want each country to work on its own, then the committees can be established in each country. If you want to instill greater collaboration and cooperation between countries, then you can organize the lower-level committee by functions. Having two levels also allows you to have multiple lower-level steering committees.

Example: Titan Broadcasting

In one situation the project goal was to implement direct satellite to business broadcasting in a nineteen-country region. The initial plan called for a sequential approach that would have taken three years. It was decided to try to speed this up. The problem was how to organize the project so that this could be accomplished. The two-tiered committee structure was established. There was one high-level executive committee. In the lower-level committee, it was decided to establish several committees based on function. The functions included government relations (getting permits, etc.); construction; television and signal transmission; and programming (what would be shown). These committees were established across the region. Since having 19 members for each committee is unwieldy, the approach was to identify one person to represent 3–4 countries. This turned out to be successful. The structure encouraged parallel effort. The overall project team acted to coordinate the implementation across all of the functions. Had the sequential approach been adopted, the first step would have been government approvals. After this, construction would have begun. Then television and programming would have kicked in. By establishing the committees in parallel, the project pace was accelerated.

How does the management structure work? There are both informal and formal channels. Informally, you seek to have project leaders establish direct informal contacts with members of both committees. Formally, the steering committee for the project deals with more tactical issues and problems. They approve how things are to be done and more detailed results and benefits. The executive committee, by way of contrast, meets less often and deals with reviewing and approving what is to be done as well as overall results.

What To Look For In A Project Leader

In order to understand what you need in an international project leader, you must first understand some of the situations and barriers that such a person will face. Here are some of the pressures, duties, and other factors that we have gathered from project leaders in over 45 major projects:

Time zone differences create havoc in dealing with problems.

When you are traveling, it is difficult to stay in touch.

There are many family pressures when you are working on an international project.

Even when people speak the same language, the meanings are very different.

People in the country prepare too well for your visit so that it is difficult to get at the truth of the work.

After you leave a country, you find out about all of the hidden issues.

It is difficult to deal with the politics at headquarters and the individual political situation in each location.

Management in a location pays lip service to the project, but does not give it the right or even adequate resources.

It is difficult to coordinate the work of the team, consultants, and local management.

It is difficult to track issues and problems to see that they are handled when there are so many things going on at one time.

As you can see from the list, identifying one person as a project leader would lead you to select Superman or Superwoman. Given you have to deal with real people with their limitations and assets, you must center your attention on the most important attributes. Let’s try to identify some of the most important general attributes and then move down to the details.

Problem-solving ability. From our experience, this one has to rank very high. Managing even small international projects often means dealing with problems, issues, and opportunities. But there is more here than you might think. It includes the ability to sense and detect problems, know when to leave problems alone, know how to do research and investigate problems, and know how to get problems solved with the appropriate actions and decisions.

Ability to cope in multiple cultures. You might think that this refers to the country culture. That is only one of the cultures. There is also the company culture in the country. Then there is the culture in a specific department—in part generated by the personality of the department manager and what the department does. Can you as a project manager know about all of these cultures as you manage the project? Of course not. However, you must be sensitive to the various cultures that are present. Be ready to learn and listen to what people say.

Tenacity and the capability of pursuing issues, etc. Although this relates to problem solving, the tenacity is required in international projects, because it is often the case that an issue is not fully understood. There is often much ambiguity in what is a problem. It is a matter of culture and interpretation. You have to get behind what is being said, how it is being said, and the situation in which it is being said. In some projects, it took us over a month to run an issue to ground and to fully understand it. The final interpretation was much different than what was expected at the start. What is stated as a problem in one location may be really something very different due to what you learn in another location.

Ability to communicate. It would be nice to be functional in many languages. And it is too bad that many people know only one language. What is meant here is the ability to get your sentences and thoughts across in a clear and unambiguous way. It is also the ability to listen to what people are telling you. We have found that these qualities can go a long way even if you do not speak a foreign language. In terms of picking up foreign terms, it is probably easier in projects to work on the written, rather than the spoken word. You find that in most industries a base of about 50–100 words will keep recurring in projects.

A sense of humor. It is extremely important to be able to laugh and enjoy a project—even when the times are difficult. Both of us have found a sense of humor to be very useful politically as well. You have to be able to step out of the project and situation and look at things from the big picture view. This should help you see something funny about it.

Familiarity and knowledge of the business. Here a knowledge of the basic business processes and how things get done is useful. In-depth knowledge about a specific department or function can actually impede your work since it may give you a bias.

Prior experience in projects. It is not necessary to have headed up a large number of projects previously. However, you should have worked in projects and participated in project activity. Hopefully, you were in projects that were not successful so you have an idea of what can go wrong.

Typical Duties For An International Project Leader

Since there are an infinite number and type of international projects, there is not one detailed list. However, from observing and participating in many projects, you can identify some of the key duties.

Definition of the project. In many international projects, the project leaders are named before the project is really underway. The project leaders would then work to define the project concept elements discussed in the preceding chapter. Remember that the political purpose here is to get consensus on the project at different levels—local and headquarters. Defining the project is a good test of a project leader since you are meeting people for the first time and you are dealing with a situation and project that has not yet been defined in detail. Dealing with ambiguity and politics are important here. Communications is a must.

Project organization. Here you are identifying team members, organizing the project, getting approvals, and kicking off the work. This tests the project leaders’ analytical ability to assess people’s skills and fit with the project. It tests the organizing ability to deal with getting the plan put together and work started.

Dealing with the routine work. This includes the administrative work in the project. Communicating with management is key here. In addition, being able to get behind what people are saying about their work to learn the true status of the project is important. Experience has shown this to be a source of failure in that the project leaders were not able to identify problems early enough so that the problems blew up.

Addressing issues and crises. Almost every international project has many issues and opportunities arise. There are also crises. What is a crisis? A crisis occurs when a group of issues become dominant factors in the project at the same time. For example, several key people leave the team at the same time that management wants to have the schedule of the project moved up.

Doing real work in the project. A project leader in an international project must lead by example. That is, he or she must demonstrate to the team that he/she can get in there and do work on the project with the best of them. That is why the term “project leader” is employed much more than “project manager.”

Administrative coordination. People working on an international team often encounter problems that the average project never faces. While the project leader is not responsible, the leader ends up doing a lot of support and coordination. Here are some things that can occur:
- A team member does not have a valid passport.
- A team member requires a visa for travel in two days; you have been told by the travel people that it takes three days to get a business visa.
- Team members run out of money while traveling. Or they become maxed out on their credit cards.
- A team member is on an extended stay in a foreign country. His travel reimbursements are not being processed fast enough.
- Civil unrest breaks out in a city and you have to extract some of the team members.
- A team member has to get a series of shots and inoculations prior to a trip, but there is not enough time.
- A team member becomes ill on a trip.

This sounds like the project leader is playing the role of a mother hen to the team. Well, it is true. Who else is the team member going to turn to for support? Here is also a political lesson learned. If you help your team members in these things, they will be very grateful and give you and the project that extra effort that can make the difference.

A key trait that cross all of these duties is the sensitivity to the people in the project and interfacing to the project team. The project leader must show a great deal of sensitivity because of the following factors. These are important lessons learned for any project leader:

The people on the team typically have many other duties to perform. Their pay and rating is tied to these duties and not to your project.

Many of the people have not worked on a project like yours or even any project. They are unsure of what to do.

Everyone is afraid of making mistakes and screwing up. So many people tend to remain silent and avoid volunteering. Don’t make the mistake of assuming silence to mean understanding.

The culture in the country and organization does not encourage initiative or creativity. Do not assume that people lack creativity. It is your challenge to find ways to open the people’s abilities up. This has been one of our greatest satisfactions in managing international projects. People themselves grow and benefit through the project. That makes all of the travel, hotels, airports, and hard work worthwhile.

Duties evolve over time in a project. At the start, the challenge is to organize the project and get it correctly started. Then the day-to-day management of issues and work goes on. As the project progresses, there will typically be more outside pressures that the project leader must cope with. Here are some of the factors:

People are taken from the project due to being needed elsewhere. Most often, this is for nonproject work such as year-end closing, etc.

Management wants the project sped up and finished. This is normal and should have been expected on day one when the project started.

Project issues tend to recur and combine later in the project so that there tend to be more crises at the back end of the project.

How does managing a small international project differ from managing a large project? One difference is that the larger project tends to last longer. This entails more risk. A second difference is that more people are involved—which means more coordination. A third difference means that there are more potential political problems and more management oversight to cope with. However, when all is said and done, the basic duties are the same.

What is a good mix of time across major activities? Of course, this varies by the project and the time or phase of the project. However, here is a general percentage list that has proven useful as a target:

Dealing with issues and opportunities—40–50%

Communicating with management, team, and others—30–40%

Doing work in the project—10–15%

Administrative work in the project—10–20%

Notice that the emphasis is on the issues and communications. These are much more important than administrative work in an international project. In traditional project management, administrative work can consume up to 70% of the time.

What To Avoid In A Project Leader

There are some attributes to avoid in a project leader. Here are a few from experience:

The project leader who loves the administrative side of the project work. This person almost avoids doing real work in the project. This can really turn people off.

Not listening to people and jumping to conclusions and findings. This can be very dangerous politically in a project and may then later cause more effort to be spent in undoing the negative impacts.

Being domineering. This is one that we have seen a great deal. The person arrives from headquarters to the company that was just acquired. He has the attitude that “he is there to straighten these people out.” That is about the worst and very common problem that project leaders have.

Trying to impose methods or tools used in one location in another without adequate analysis. This is a major problem in that people often think that since their methods have worked elsewhere, they will work someplace entirely different. Not true. Most methods and how tools are used have to be adapted to the specific setting.

Focusing on areas where the person is comfortable rather than on areas of risk and issues where there are problems and where the project leader is really needed.

Project Leader Selection

How do you evaluate and select people for project leadership? Putting it another way, you have been given a stack of resumes of people who want to manage the project. What do you do? Evaluation starts with defining the approach to interview and assess the candidates. Here are some guidelines for international projects:

Ask them about the issues and problems they addressed in the past. How did they handle them? This is very important since you are testing their problem solving ability.

Ask about political problems. Find out how they identified and dealt with political factors. This reveals their sensitivity and awareness of political factors.

Ask what key things they learned from their past work and how they put it to use. This helps test their ability to learn and improve. This also gives you an idea of what was learned from project failure and success.

Pose several situations from your own projects. You might include some of the things we have mentioned earlier in this chapter. See how they respond. How quick are they on their feet in dealing with issues?

If you are seeking some specific area of skills such as finance or engineering, then rather than ask about general experience, you should pose a situation in that field and see how they respond.

Experience over the years has shown that this approach has gotten to the person’s strengths and weaknesses far better than asking about items on their resumes.

How do you evaluate and select a project leader after doing the evaluation? Follow a two-pronged approach. For each candidate rate their suitability in terms of the criteria that was mentioned in the previous sections. This gives you a rating of their strengths.

Now turn it around. Go for the weaknesses and risk. For each candidate identify three areas where they are weak and where the project would be at risk. This gives you the negative side of the coin. Many times this is more important than the strengths.

For multiple project leaders, you can probe and consider more criteria related to the specific business or technical functions, experience in the country, etc. Again, this reveals the benefit of going with two project leaders.

An even more proactive step is to seek out people who would be good project leader candidates. Often, these people have not even thought of being project leaders. What do you probe for to see if these people are suitable and interested? Here are some questions:

Can they work with limited supervision? This relates to initiative.

Can they be extracted from their current work? This is a good test since it considers the ability of the person to turn over work and whether they are willing to make a major change.

How To Succeed As A Project Leader

You have already seen some of the key success factors in the list of what to look for in a project leader. Let’s expand on success. Success means building up a pattern of dealing with issues. People tend to have more confidence in you since you have dealt with many issues before.

Try to read up on the culture and history of the country. Learn what political and economic issues are hot in the country ahead of time. You will not want to discuss these in-depth because you will likely not have sufficient accurate knowledge, but you will be showing sensitivity. In one country that had been through a long military rule, we showed sympathy for the need for stability.

By plunging in and doing work in the project wherever you are geographically, people tend to respect you more. They see you getting your hands dirty. Related to this you have to socialize with the team members and managers in each country. You should dress in the attire appropriate to that office after you have been there for a day or two. Politically, it is useful to show up in formal attire the first day and then to dress as a local on the second day. This shows respect for the working culture.

Eat and drink what the local people consume. Do not be overly picky—you risk raising resentment. Socialize with them when they visit your home office. Try to remember birthdays and anniversaries. Send paper cards and letters—not just e-mail—it means a lot more and shows that you went to greater effort and expense.

Success also must be achieved in dealing with managers. Follow the same guidelines as for the team in the country. In addition, try to communicate with upper-level managers informally on a regular basis. When you visit a country go to the manager of the office several times—not just at the start and the end. Find out what other projects and work are going on. This is useful for several reasons. First, you are getting a better understanding of what you are competing with in terms of your project. Second, you can probably help in any resource allocation issue if you better understand what is going on in addition to the project.

How To Fail As A Project Leader

Failure can take many forms. The project could succeed, but you failed as a leader. Both you and the project failed. There are many variations in between. In international projects, there is often more turnover of project leaders due to problems. In many international projects, there is often no alternative but to finish the project—with different leadership.

Here is a list from observations of how some project leaders failed:

The project leader was insensitive to local needs and demands on the staff.

The project leader took the view of corporate and tried to boss the local people around.

The leader assumed that he/she had more authority than he/she really had. Overstepping authority bounds is a frequent cause of failure as a project leader.

Not being sensitive to issues and not dealing with issues on a timely basis. As a result, the issues grow and become more severe over time.

Being inflexible in terms of the project when the scope, needs, and requirements change.

Being inflexible in terms of changes at the local level. This can be due to economic or political factors. Or it can be success where a plant must gear up to do more production.

The Score Card For The Project Leader

The use of score cards has always been a good idea for regular measurement. Later in the book you will see score cards for a project, for department participation, and for consultants and contractors. Figure 3.3 contains a score card for the project leader. You should evaluate yourself on a regular basis. Also, use this list as a starting point. As you review the list, you can see that some of the factors are subjective. This is by intent since project management is not a science; rather, it deals with the world of politics and personalities.

Figure 3.3: Score Card for a Project Leader

How often should a project leader be measured? Certainly, not just at the end of the project. If you have a year-long project, then three measurements would be useful. This would give the opportunity to make some changes and improvements when the project is still going on.

Managing Multiple Projects

If the discussion of project leadership were to stop here, this would traditionally be in line with other books. However, international projects really benefit from gathering lessons learned and from building project management capabilities over time. Cumulative effect and benefits are the keys to long-term success in international projects. Your goals for managing international projects extend beyond a specific project and include the following:

Make project plans more accurate and estimation better through improved project templates. Projects are reviewed during and after the work to improve the project templates.

Lessons learned are gathered during and after the projects and associated with the project templates. The lessons learned are then applied to work in new projects, generating more experience.

Experience in dealing with issues grows and people become more aware of what methods work and fail in dealing with issues. The awareness that the same issues recur again and again in international projects grows.

Some would argue that this experience is not really that relevant since each international project is unique. Take construction. Each building project is unique to the situation. The same is true with mergers and acquisitions. Yet, look at the real world. The details are different each time, but the general structure of types of projects is the same. Thus, if you were going to deploy a new purchasing process in four countries, each country could use the same project template, but the detailed plans would be different. Moreover, after you finished in one country with one project, you could learn from this effort to benefit you in the second. The same would be true for the third and fourth. This is true even if the efforts were undertaken in parallel.

The same is true with issues and lessons learned. The same 400–500 issues have been found to recur again and again in projects. Lessons learned gathered about dealing with cultural or political issues tend to remain valid in different situations.

The Project Office And The Role Of Project Coordinator

If keeping experience is a good idea, then the problem becomes one of how best to gather, retain, and organize the information. One method is to employ a project office. A project office is a centralized group in an organization that is concerned with projects across the corporation—not just the international projects. However, project offices sometimes fail because they become too bureaucratic. They also fail because the people in the project office are only schedulers and have not managed a real world project.

Is there another approach that can work better? Experience shows that the use of a project coordination role is very useful. To be effective the position of project coordinator should rotate among different organizations and people. In this way, it will have less of a chance of becoming bureaucratic. What is the role of project coordination?

Analysis of multiple projects. The project coordinator rolls up the information for multiple projects and presents it to management.

Initial analysis of issues and questions posed by management. A central lead is needed to follow up on issues and problems that are defined by management and have to be coordinated across multiple projects.

Organizing the project files and project history. This seems like a mundane and routine job, but it is significant. Project history tends to get lost in the rush of other work. Here the project coordinator oversees a library of completed projects for future reference.

Oversight of the lessons learned and issues databases. These databases have been defined and will be addressed in more detail later. Obviously, for any database there must be someone who oversees the quality, completeness, and accuracy of the information.

Identification of new, potential project leaders. The project coordinator can help to identify, evaluate, and recommend candidates for project leaders for international projects.

Support and mentoring of project leaders in the field. Project leaders are often on their own. Even with having two project leaders per project, there are times when some outside help and guidance can be useful. That is the purpose of this role.