International Project Management Outsourcing Projects

Question: Discuss about theInternational Project Managementfor Outsourcing Projects. Answer: Introduction In the 21st century, business life is becoming global in nature. Big multinational organizations as well as domestic organizations apply various concepts of globalizations. The concepts of globalization include development of application, outsourcing projects, global resource usage from various cultures. Among the three topics, second topic i.e. soft skills of cross-cultural communication as a critical factor of success of project management are chosen. It is because nowadays, international projects are facing challenges in meeting perfection due to lack of cross-cultural communication among the multicultural teams. Choosing this topic, the essay will focus on all aspects faced by project managers. Culture is an important factor in maintaining success in projects by project managers. It can be said that the project managers who are associated with the global projects of different sectors of industries must follow techniques of cross-cultural communication. The essay will discuss abou t difficulties faced by inter-cultural teams as well as project managers to manage them. In the multinational organizations, mostly cross-cultural communications are practiced in order to monitor the performance of the intercultural teams in a particular project (Brookes et al. 2013). Incorporation of cultural aspect in project management itself is an issue that is faced by international project managers in managing the quality and quantity of work done by the team members that are spread across different countries of the world. However, the essay will proceed with the challenges along with the process of implementation of cultural awareness and knowledge among the interventions of project management. Project management in modern business world has gained popularity in the form of distinct management concept that is used while driving goals and objectives of business along with economic development of the company and country as a whole. There are many types of projects that requires project management of intercultural teams such as infrastructure development, product development, event planning, IT projects, real estate projects etc. Globalization has created a cutting edge in the success of the projects (Barmeyer and Haupt 2016). Apart from that, technological innovation along with experienced project managers has reached the zenith of success of different projects in different multinational organizations. The factors of success and failure of a particular project depends on many factors such as improper planning, lack of mission and vision in a project, lack of monitoring, lack of communication, etc. These are the causes of failure of a project. project managers must put emphasi s on these factors to make a successful project within the time frame along with high quality of deliverables. On the other hand, the failure of international projects includes a factor i.e. lack of proper communication between intercultural teams (Walker 2015). Culture and diversity are the factors that are responsible for creating effects on the international projects. International projects can be classified into four categories such as: virtual, global, multinational, and multicultural projects. It can be seen that the project managers who are associated with global projects are found to provide extra transient and unique endeavour in order to provide unique services and products to the clients (Coldwell and Fried 2014). They efficiently use resources from the countries that are involved in the intercultural teams of the project. Without soft skills of cross-cultural communication, project managers can not be able to use efficiently the available resources available for completi on of the projects. Apart from that, the talent of the team members can not be properly utilized so that they can work effectively as well as efficient manner. There are other sets of challenges that are faced by the global project managers while managing intercultural teams such as cultural issues, language problem, different time zones, and different sets of plans of holidays of team members associated with the project (Erez et al. 2013). These issues are related to lack of cross-cultural communication in the different subsidiaries of the parent company. However, project managers have to overcome different issues related to culture in order to make a transition by adjusting with various time zones along with nationalities. It seems to be very challenging to complete a project within time with quality. Experienced managers sometimes feel very stressful to mitigate all the pitfalls along with some additional works while managing the cultural issues (Klitmller and Lauring, 2013). Man aging culture is very critical in the success of project along with the project managers of multinational companies. It is seen that these factors are the reasons of failures of global projects where companies invest huge amount of money in the desire of expected outcomes. The above mentioned factors are the internal factors of companies that are resulting into lower productivity of the projects at global level. Lack of soft skills of cross-cultural communication among the team members is responsible for the number of failures of international projects of many organizations. Outsourcing is the most popular trend that is practiced by many multinational corporations to complete their projects deliberately (Wiewiora et al. 2013). For instance, IT organizations outsource their projects to many other companies in other countries that take responsibility of their projects. IT organizations usually do this outsourcing in order to avoid the cultural problems among the different internationa l project managers of the company. Soft skills of cross-cultural communication are very important in creating an integration among the intercultural teams of multinational organization. A theoretical framework of project management with the implementation of three management techniques can be customer management, stakeholder management and intercultural management. Intercultural management in project management includes various techniques of cross-cultural communication. There are many techniques that are implemented by the project managers of the teams such as communication, training and development, implementation of theoretical concepts such as Hofstedes model, and other cultural models (Rockstuhl et al. 2015). Culture can also be included in the perspective of stakeholder management. Stakeholders of a company can be present in different countries of the world. It is the responsibility of the project managers to keep the stakeholders of the company updated about the project and different steps related to it. Approv al of the stakeholders is necessary if the project managers want to implement any new steps or changes in the project. If the stakeholders and the project manager belong to different culture, then it is a problem faced by the project managers to maintain proper channels of communication between them if cross-cultural management techniques are not applied properly at the organizational level (Brookes et al. 2013). It will lead to the success of the projects handled by these project managers if the implementation of the techniques and approaches of cross-cultural management are done in a proper way. The other important aspect of the model is customer management. Project managers of the organizations interact not only to the other members of the project but also with the clients. Clients are considered as the customers of the project in this model. Client management is the most important perspective for a project manager. It is required because the most of the clients communicate with the project managers regarding the various aspects of project (Luo and Zheng 2016). It includes changes in project, modifications and progress in the project, etc. It is the responsibility of the project managers to satisfy the clients as well as the organizations that requires soft skills of cross-cultural communication. Apart from that, it can be said that the three modules of the project management model are interrelated with each other. A strict communication between the three core aspects for obtaining best results in the success of the project (Klitmller and Lauring, 2013). Apart from this model, there are few steps that are recommended to the project managers in enhancing cross-cultural communication among the intercultural teams. The steps are: Outlining diversity from beginning of the project- Identification of problem is required to solve the cultural issues. It is the responsibility of the project manager to keep record of the cultural diversity and it should be outlined from the starting of the project. It is common that the team members must not be of same background. Hence, the process of doing work would be different. It is the basic characteristics of an intercultural team (Thomas and Peterson 2014). Accounting culture of the associated people into project preparations- A project manager can easily get the information regarding the cultural background of the team members by using internet. As the project managers are experienced in handling international projects, it will be easy for them to gain an understanding of the team members. It will help in enhancing the performance of the team. Planning communications- Communications are the most important part that is required to maintain a particular deliverables of the project. A number of sessions must be conducted within the team about the project. The flow of communications should be controlled by the project manager (Rockstuhl et al. 2015). Promoting trust, relationship and transparency among the team- Promoting culture of trust and transparency among the team members will result in the group cohesiveness. The team members can feel that they are a part of the team. Culture of trust must not be imposed on the team members forcefully. Instead of it project manager must convey it in an understanding way. Introduction of a cultural interactivity and transfer of knowledge- Interactivity is considered as most beneficial tool of a project manager in his arsenal. A need for smooth flow of knowledge and skills is necessary to create a bonding between the team members. Transfer of knowledge is not only restricted to vertical integration but also to the horizontal integration so that the organization as a whole can be integrated into the project (Binder 2016). Accepting the environmental changes in the team- A project manager must have to accept the changes in a team and act accordingly. Encompassing environment is not considered as a permanent issue in the field of project management. Political and environmental changes can affect the project. Hence, project managers must be ready with contingency plans. Culture of a particular area can also affect the performance of team members (Moran et al. 2014). Aspect of cultural awareness and knowledge in different aspects of project management is very critical factor in the success of various international projects of different sectors of industries particularly IT projects. Techniques of cultural management such as implementation of theoretical frameworks along with other methods and approaches are implemented to mitigate the cultural gaps between the various team members. Apart from that, various recommendations are provided in the above that indicates that cross-cultural approaches are not only included in the processes of cultural management (Kerzner 2013). The aspect of cultural management when implemented into project management can be categorized into three groups such as stakeholder management, customer management, and intercultural management. Customer management involves client vendor relationship, client integration and customer management. The factors of intercultural management such as foreign cultures, cultural diversity, cr oss-cultural communication, etc. are depended on various aspects of customer management in the phase of project management. Researchers have identified that in the field of global requirement negotiations cultural differences is the major problem. The multinational organizations found many issues in this aspect in many countries like United States, Europe, etc. References Barmeyer, C. and Haupt, U., 2016. Future+: Intercultural Challenges and Success Factors in an International Virtual Project Team.Intercultural Management: A Case-Based Approach to Achieving Complementarity and Synergy, p.214. 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