Page 346 - Global Project Management Handbook

MANAGING GLOBAL PROJECTS 17-3

that future projects will adopt new technology as needed to further expand their busi-
ness involvement globally.
As a result, we have seen that the same old human communication problems, from
pure ignorance, to timing delays, to misinterpretations, to speculation, to distrust, to
conflicts of interest, to hidden agendas, to cross-culture misunderstandings, to inade-
quate information sharing, and to skill mismatches have been transformed to new
formats and reintroduced to the new project workplaces. The compound effects of
solving global problems in a complex working environment complicate the new proj-
ect workplaces even further. In the end, a project manager may find himself or herself
in a situation that is mission-critical, yet he or she has no clue about what will happen
next and how the risks should be managed.

GLOBAL BUSINESS AND ITS CHALLENGES

In the traditional business environment, a project is started with a well-defined charter
and clearly specified requirements. All the project team members are physically
located in nearby buildings. A project manager just follows through the project plan
rigorously to ensure on-time delivery with quality under the allocated budget.
However, today’s global project is so complex that it can no longer operate under a
concrete structure from a designated location. For instance, the business model, which
serves as the foundation of the project charter, is being challenged daily under global
competition; the underlining technology, international standards, government policies,
regional economies, and customer awareness are not always moving in the same direc-
tion as the project anticipates. To respond to the changes in the marketplace and work-
ing environment, a project may need to be regrouped, and the working environment
may need to be reconfigured to support the changes. The following sections further
elaborate the key contributors to the global business challenges along with proposed
solutions.

Worldwide Competition with Local Incentive

A global project may include many teams and team members from different countries. Each

country may have different regulations governing its business entities and organizational
structures. The global project team members are supposed to share the same project mission
and resources all over the world under slightly different circumstances. Yet culture, infra-
structure, regulations, and support are different from country to country. Sometimes, to
increase earnings, a global project may operate differently from country to country to take
advantage of regional pricing or local government incentives. Even though general prac-
tices may be compromised by local exceptions, this adds value to the overall business
results. Hence, to build a project management system that is able to capture all the project
information from different sources and share it across the project team with a consistent
point of view will help to sustain the company’s global positioning.
From time to time, owing to worldwide market competitions, a global project may
not be able to stay on the same path as its original scope would suggest. In some
cases, it may require radical changes in business processes and organizational struc-
ture to cope with new business alliances and upcoming opportunities. The dynamics of
a global business operation in search of new market opportunities demands a better
project management system, one that provides real-time intelligence to guide the
overall progress rather than the ones built around physically closed environments.