Page 116 - Global Project Management Handbook

DEVELOPING MULTINATIONAL PROJECT TEAMS 5-5

FIGURE 5.2 Business sub-systems that need to be
integrated for global teams.

projects appear to benefit most from joint-venturing and a broad talent search. Therefore,
these situations are most likely to produce global teams. Typical examples are R&D or
product development, such as for avionics, automobiles, computers, software, and phar-
maceuticals, as well as large service programs ranging from airline ticketing to medical
diagnostics. When describing their complexities, multinational project managers point to
specific indicators, such as the high degree of technical difficulties, 15 evolving solu-
tions, 4,13 high levels of innovation and creativity, complex decision processes and uncer-
tainty, intricate technology-transfer networks, 31,63 complex support systems, intricate
multicompany support, 13,20 and highly complex forms of work integration. 56

Team Culture

By their very nature, multinational project teams are highly diverse in their culture and

value system, as well as in their team leadership. Work integration relies to a consider-
able extent on member-generated performance norms and evaluations rather than on top-
down hierarchical guidelines, policies, and procedures. 50 As a result, self-directed team
processes have become very common and are gradually replacing traditional, more hier-
archically structured project teams for orchestrating and controlling multinational pro-
72
jects. Effective role performance in such a contemporary work environment requires a
more sophisticated management style that relies strongly on group interaction at local
levels, as well as resource and power sharing, individual accountability, commitment,
conflict handling, cooperation, and top-management involvement.

Work Process
Because of the distributed nature of multinational projects, work processes are also dis-
tributed, less sequential, and less centrally administered. They are more team-based and
self-directed and often are structured for parallel, concurrent execution of the work. As a