Offshore program management

Generally, there are three types of culture identified Henry, :. One of reasons this struck a cord was that I work for Hewlett Packard, a very similar organisation. Hofstede identified four work-related differences in National culture, which are shown below. Power Distance — relates to how hierarchical the organisation is seen, the distance between subordinates and superiors. Uncertainty avoidance — how much ambiguity is tolerated by individuals versus the requirement for rules, an individual or a group attitude to risk.

Individual vs. Hofstede highlighted how different nationalities scored on his four scales, as shown in the following table. National cultures are based on long established values, however, these behaviours can be modified by a strong organisational culture, and behaviours that are rewarded by an organisation may modify, but not totally obscure national cultures. How long a particular group has worked together will make a difference in behaviour.

As a team goes through the Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing phases, the impact of national culture versus organisational culture will change, for example, team vs.

So how do these factors impact project teams and Project Managers? Remember there are at least two organisational scenarios where some of these factors will have an impact. The first one looks at a German Project Manager and a predominately Indian project team, just looking at two of Hofstede's dimensions;. However, if the organisational culture were more project or team orientated, this would have less of an impact.

From a customer supplier angle, consider a Swiss Customer and a US supplier working with an offshore team in India:. An interesting question, which is probably the subject of another paper, Which national culture would you see as making the most natural Project Manager? The Project Manager has a key role in both increasing the positive impact of the cultural differences and reducing the negative impact.

By recognizing some of the issues that may surface as highlighted above and by planning to maximize advantages and minimize disadvantages, as shared in the lessons learnt, the Project Manager is on the right road to building a successful, multi-cultural team.

So, from my experience, what are the advantages and challenges of multi-national teams? You can spot the organisational culture; we don't have problems in HP, only opportunities or challenges! In one way, there is no choice here, business is multi-national, this is not a theory, but a fact! Hence, the ability to work in this environment becomes a business fundamental, not a breakthrough.

Certainly in the IT work, there is also an increasing focus on offshore work, as the quotations shown illustrate —so, you IT project managers, get used to it! Hofstede, in his book Cultures and Organizations talks about the Competitive Advantage of different cultural profiles, the potential impact of forming a diverse project team;.

I have certainly found it rewarding , working in a multi-national, multi-cultural organisation. One interesting side effect is that, as you work in multi-national teams, you may be building capability or domain expertise in a country that did not have it before. The team members in that country may then be able to use that expertise locally, leading to opportunities to build the business. In a time crunch to finalize a presentation, it is possible to start the work in Europe; carry on in California, complete in India ready for Europe the following morning!

So, from experience, what are some of the challenges? Communication — clearly, communication is easier in a single cultural, co-located team. The challenges start with multicultural, co-located teams and get more challenging for multi-cultural, multiple location teams — some of the lessons learnt are described later.

Same with Project Governance, what are the roles and responsibilities in the team, what are the decision-making processes and do they account for different cultures. The following is an excellent example of this, based on the chemical company, ICI.

Time and Distance — this may sound like Project Management , but it is important to remember the impact of time and distance on your project planning, it physically takes time to ship stuff from India to Norway, there may be import restrictions on computer equipment or software licenses, work permits can take time to get.

What time do you hold a project review, when your team is in California, Germany and India, public holidays are different in different countries, weekends are different, particularly in the Middle-East.

Cultural differences can also make a major difference in project control. One reality is that it is likely a large number of work packages will be developed remote from the Project Manager, so there needs to be a reasonable degree of trust. This degree of trust can take time to develop. One way this is manifest is in problem identification. This may not be the case with High Power distance and where the trust has not developed.

An Indian development team may hit a problem. Their natural tendency is to try and fix it by working hard, whilst, potentially, not highlighting the issue to the Project Manager. This can result in a lot of frustration for the Project Manager, as there do not appear to be problems, but slow progress is being made.

In one experience, a problem with National Language settings caused a problem for weeks offshore but once revealed to the on-site team was solved in minutes by a local engineer who had seen the problem before. Some are very specific actions to do; others are areas to watch for cultural differences. In terms of planning, if possible, to have a kick-off meeting with everyone in the same physical location. Our technology is built on the idea that everyone should be able to work from anywhere, at any time, and on any device.

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At any time. Om uw team effectief te managen moet u de juiste mensen in uw team hebben. Dit lijkt misschien vanzelfsprekend, maar in offshore samenwerking heeft de projectmanager aan de kant van de klant hier geen invloed op. Zorg ervoor dat uw programmerende teamleden uw vereisten kunnen verwezenlijken met betrekking tot vaardigheden in communicatie, codering kwaliteit, teamwork, analyse en persoonlijke vaardigheden. In een ideale wereld waar er veel tijd is om voor te bereiden zou ik zeggen dat het tweede belangrijke punt is het realiseren van een duidelijk en effectief Proces.

Maar ik weet dat u wil beginnen omdat u een urgent project heeft en een deadline die u moet halen. Als een programmeur zorgt voor vertraging in uw project is uw natuurlijke reactie te concluderen dat offshoring te complex is en dat de programmeur niet goed genoeg is. Het geheim is: Ik heb niet veel projectmanager ontmoet die ander gedrag vertoonden, ze worden allemaal gefrustreerd en geven de programmeur de schuld.

Heel normaal gedrag. Mijn ervaring leert dat als een programmeur voor vertraging zorgt betekent het dat hij ergens anders vast zit.

Programmeurs zijn trots op hun werk: ze denken altijd dat ze het probleem binnen een uur op kunnen lossen terwijl het ze eigenlijk meer dan een dag kost. Als projectmanager moet u de exacte technische details uitvinden van waar de programmeur vast kwam te zitten. Blijf net zo lang zoeken tot u een compleet beeld van het probleem heeft en haal er dan iemand bij die hem kan helpen.

Zorg niet voor meer stress bij hem door hem te pushen voor de deadline, dit heeft het tegenovergestelde effect meer bugs door tijdsdruk, en dus nog meer frustratie voor u.

Manage de programmeur door hem te helpen zijn problemen op te lossen, manage niet alleen tijd en deadlines natuurlijk wilt u de deadline halen, maar dat wil de programmeur ook … er leiden meer wegen naar Rome. Mijn ervaring leert dat de beste projectmanager technologie begrijpt. Als hij ook codes kan schrijven is dat helemaal ideaal, maar hij moet wel enig idee hebben van wat de programmeur doet.

Hij moet elk detail van een functioneel en technisch ontwerp weten en de details van het project managen, niet de ruwe tijdsspan. Een niet-technische projectmanager kan de programmeurs niet helpen en kan dus serieuze problemen niet oplossen. Als derde: Proces. Ik heb hierover geschreven in voorgaande artikelen en zal dit ook blijven doen omdat ik denk dat het over het algemeen de meest belangrijke succesfactor in offshoring is.

En vooral in het geval van een projectmanager. Als u geen gedocumenteerd stappenplan van de manier van werken heeft, hoe weet u en uw team dan wat er gedaan moet worden?

Als er een probleem is, naar wie gaan we dan toe en hoe communiceren we erover? Schrijf alle aspecten van de samenwerking op en blijf dit document aanpassen totdat u het perfecte proces voor uw situatie heeft. Bridge heeft veel ervaring met het succesvol maken van een offshore samenwerking. We proberen onze kennis te gebruiken om onze klanten te helpen meer groei en winst te realiseren. Now in the ideal world with loads of time to prepare for cooperation, I would say the second most important is to establish a clear, effective Process.

But I know that you want to get going, because you have an urgent project and you have to make a deadline. If a programmer creates a delay in your project, your natural inclination is to conclude that offshoring is too complex and the programmer is not good enough. The secret is: I have not met many project managers who showed different behavior, they all get frustrated and start blaming the programmer.

Perfectly normal behavior. In my experience, when a programmer creates delay, it means he got stuck somewhere. And programmers have a pride in their work: they always think that they can solve the issue in the next hour, even in reality it might take them a few days. As a project manager, you have to find out the exact technical details of where the programmer got stuck.

Drill down just as long as you have a complete understanding of the problem and then involve someone to help him out. This second how to relates to another important question: should the project manager on customer side be a technically skilled person maybe even a programmer or a non-technical manager , who is apt at managing time and deadlines?

My experience is that the best project manager understands technology. Ideally he can make code too, but at the minimum he should understand what the programmer is doing, he should know every detail of a functional and technical design and manage on the details of the project, not on the rough timelines.

As third: Process. And especially in the project management context. What to do if we face a problem, whom to consult, how to communicate about it? Write down any aspect of the cooperation and keep on adjusting your process descriptions until you have the perfect process for your situation.

Bridge has extensive experience in making offshore cooperations successful. We try to use our knowledge to help our customers achieve more growth and more profit. If you want to know more about how to manage your offshore project, feel free to contact one of our offices near to you. Hugo Messer is a Dutch entrepreneur, distributed agile team specialist, and author.

He is the founder and owner of Bridge Global, a software services provider, and ekipa. He has been building and managing teams around the world for the past several years. His passion is to enable people that are spread across cultures, geography and time zones to cooperate.

It is also good to have some monetary compensation for doing good job for e. Zover ik het engels schrijven goed begrepen heb knip ik het schrijven van Hugo in een paar stukken en reageer daarop. In de basis is er geen projectmanagement verschil. Populair kan je zeggen dat projectmanagement bestaat uit denken, doen en sluiten. Het resultaat of doel en omgeving kunnen verschillen.