Cross cultural teamwork
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Revision as of 12:51, 22 September 2015
Contents |
NOTE to reviewers
This article is not done. Still some parts are missing and the text has not been read through for spelling, grammar and other mistakes.
The things I would like reviewed
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Abstract
(UPDATE WHEN FINISHED ARTICLE) Cross-cultural, languages and geographical challenges are some of challenge areas that can influence the work of a global team, meaning a team where the members are geographical spread out. The team members might have different cultural backgrounds, language barriers or may be located in different time zones. These types of challenges influence the communication and the understanding within the team, which can lead to misunderstandings or disagreements. In project management this is something to consider in project management process, when trying to predict, manage and control possible issues and delays within the work as well as the execution of the work, in order to make the process as smooth as possible. To use the global project management as an advantage it is important to be aware of the differences, understand where the different stakeholder or members come from and use the differences to your advantage. This article focuses on the challenges, which should be dealt with through out the process of managing a global project. Three of the project management knowledge areas within a project management framework will be discussed with focus on a virtual teamwork. The areas in focus are; human resource, communication and stakeholder management.
Introduction
To become a large company with an international business plan, teamwork across different countries is inevitable. Focus on global project management (GPM) is important when dealing with larger project on a global scale. The company might want to outsource or offshore parts of the developing of the product or service, in order to save cost and time, make the process more effective or acquire certain skills. E.g. local people could do the market analysis and exploration and selling of the product/service from the investigated country. As well the production or parts of it could take place either close to where the raw materials are extracted, in the country where the product is to be sold or in a country where the labour is cheaper. As a project manager you have to be able to handle different stakeholders; within your project team, the market, suppliers and possible collaborating companies.
The PMI standard of project management (PM) framework entails ten main knowledge areas that a project manager has to master in the five project process stages: initiate, plan, execute, monitor and control and closing project. This article will consider the areas where global project management (GPM) mainly differ from “regular” PM. The three areas in focus in this article are; human resource management, project communications management and stakeholder management. The other seven areas will not be approached in this article. The main challenge areas within GPM are; the geographical locations, the cross-cultural differences and language barriers.
Challenges faced in cross-cultural teamwork
Here is a list of examples on specific challenges:
Geographical distances
Cross-cultural differences
Languages barriers
Culture and how it affects teamwork
Definitions of culture National culture: “the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time”. Culture in at a workplace: “the ideas and ways of working that are typical for an organization, and that affect how it does business and how its employees behave” Organizational culture: “the types of attitudes and agreed ways of working shared by the employees of a company or organization” [1]
Culture’s influence on a person
How a person thinks and behaves are influences by the human nature, culture and personality. E.g. meaning all human by nature eats when they are hungry. Culture could affect what they choose to eat. Personality could influences what you like or what you do not like to eat. The human nature is universal and inherent. The culture is acquired by a specific group or category and the personality is inherent and acquired and is specific to the individual. (INSERT FIGURE)
Culture differences (REWRITE SECTION)
Cultural distance assessment: Cultural aspects that can lead to challenges: Be aware that when looking at cultural aspects it is very easy to form stereotypes.
Levels of organizational culture
Culture can be divided into three levels. On the high level are the visible aspects of a culture. E.g. a part of the organizational culture can be the dress code or the jargon, ceremonies within the organization. On the second level the Value level is, e.g. rules and behaviours, such as teamwork and innovation. This vision often comes from the founder of the organization. The third deepest level, Assumptions, is invisible, unspoken and is often taken for granted within the culture, like quality and responsibility. This organizational culture differs from company to company. (INSERT FIGURE)
Types of cultural orientation
Ten principles of making virtual teams work[2]
As described before the company can have different reasons for off-shoring or outsourcing parts of the process but to keep up the efficiency it is important to be ready for issues that can occur. In order to avoid or deal with some of the issues, which can arise in a virtual team ten principles can be taken into account.
- Early face-to-face meeting: In communication theory it is common known that different types of communication media is richer than others meaning some channels is more effective than others. On the top of the list of most effective communication media is face-to-face meeting “Face-to-face is the richest medium because it provides immediate feedback so the interpretation can be checked”. [3] More than just being a communication media, meeting people in real life is also more effective when building relationships and is important for a team to establish an essential foundation for the further work. As meeting annually or more often improves the feeling of connections and enhances the shared vision.
- Align roles within the team: In the global team with no day to day meetings it is crucial to have detailed clarification of the different roles, tasks and responsibilities to make it easier to coordinate the work. As well reviewing the work is important to keep track of the time, cost etc.
- Structure the communication: In order to have effective communication with as few misunderstandings or disagreements it is a good idea to make a communication charter, where the norms are established, conversation rules, which media to use in which situations. E.g. using emails for reply could be inefficient in some cases but very practical in other. As well interrupting or sitting in a room with a lot of noise when on a videoconference can be very disturbing.
- Deciding for the best possible communication channels: Which communication programs are on the market is constantly changing, and developers add new features, new names etc. to the program. However it is important not to blinded with all these possibilities. Maybe the best possible media is not the newest, if some members can not use it or the connection is slow, the reliability is low and so on. It is important to include all team members on the platform to not impair the communication.
- Creating and maintaining team rhythm: To enable coordination of work tasks, regular communication is needed. When being a virtual team with rare face-to-face meetings and with no daily interaction it is easy to loose contact. It is important to make some routines and schedule meetings, e.g. by having videoconferences every Monday at 1 pm etc. As well if the meeting time is unfortunate for some members due to time difference make sure to not burden only some members, but maybe change the time of day every second week.
- Create common language understanding and use: In a cross-cultural team, members might not all have the same mother tongue. Therefore it is important to agree on the communication language within the team and also decide what specific important words mean. A list of words and meaning should be share among the team members.
- Creating room for a virtual “coffee break”: When team working with people in the same building or at the office next door it is easy to socialize and build a relationship. When having a virtual team, it is important to still have focus on this aspect. A way of doing it is by having each meeting starting with checking in on each team member, what is going well and what the challenges are. Other ways are to use online networking platforms or make virtual team building exercises.
- Ensuring and tracking commitment: It is easy for a project manager to keep track and know if the team members are up to date with their tasks when he meets the members on a daily basis. However when managing a virtual team it is harder to do this. To keep milestones and to engage in commitment a #diverse dashboard” can be used. With this tool the project manager is able to plot the tasks and allowing all members to see the board makes it possible for them to see where they should be and keeps them responsible for finishing the task on time.
- Engage team by sharing leadership: Using shared leadership as a way of engaging the members can be useful in a virtual team. Smaller tasks such as facilitating a team building exercise or helping a new team member getting to know the routines can help engaging team members and letting them take part in the leadership.
- Individual coaching and leading: To enhance productivity and commitment one-to-one meetings between project manager and team members are important and should be a part of the weekly routines. In this meeting the members should give updates, get feedback but also be reminded on their role in the project and the common vision.
Cross-culture in a standard Project management process
In this section the three knowledge areas will be discussed in a GPM context and the ten principles as well as theory on cultural differences will be addressed in the context. Within each step some matters should be taken into account when the team members and other stakeholders are geographically dispersed, might have language barriers and different cultural backgrounds. In Table 1 the different activities is mapped. Be aware that the three knowledge areas overlap, which means that one activity in project human resource management could also be seen as an activity in communication management or stakeholder management. Each activity is explain in the sections below.
Project Human Resource Management
Within this knowledge area there is four steps; planning, acquire, develop and manage.
Planning human resources Defining needed project staffing; roles, responsibilities and capabilities. In a global team it is important to consider where is the needed skills available but also pay attention to how it could have disadvantages off-shoring or outsourcing, due to cultural, language and time difference.
Acquire project team Acquire the needed team members possibility of forming a virtual team.
Develop team
Project communication management
Due to the overlap in the three knowledge areas the part which is already described in project human resource management will not be describe again. In project communication management the focus is on plan, manage and controlling within the process. (MISSING TEXT)
Communication: “Reasons/purposes” of communication:
Project stakeholder management
Like in the previous section some aspects has already been described earlier and to get the full picture the previous two sections should be read. In project stakeholder management identifying, planning, managing and controlling stakeholder engagement are a part of the process. (MISSING TEXT)
Identifying stakeholders
Plan stakeholder management
Manage stakeholder engagement
Control stakeholder engagement
Deal with: - Identify own culture - Respect, fairness and democracy - Learn culture, common ground - Doubt, Listen - State facts, not your interpretation - Consider the other persons viewpoint - Proactively maintain identity of the group
Annotated bibliography
(REMEMBER PROPER REFERENCING AND A SHORT DESCRIPTION FOR EACH LINK)
