Author: Curt Finch

There are no longer many physical obstacles to performing global projects. Instantaneous global collaboration, inexpensive resource transportation, and near-global access to knowledge have expanded organizations’ horizons and consumer markets. At the same time, however, these now-hurdled obstacles present new challenges to the global project manager: though distance is now surmountable, what happens when project team members speak different languages, for example? We may have instantaneous communication, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into instant comprehension.

So where does this current level of interconnectedness leave the modern global project manager? The internet and globalization are too young to have expunged regional differences, yet they make collaboration between these regions too profitable to be ignored. The following obstacles are real threats to conducting good business. But can all of these be hurdled using a combination of new technology – the tools which have brought us this far along – and old tactics – the tried and true elements which constitute business as we know it?  Though future generations may not experience these same complications as we do today, they currently pose a threat to conducting smooth business.

Approaching Cultural Differences

The first crucial step toward achieving a positive leadership role is to wipe clear any notions of superiority that you may hold. Remain cognizant of the fact that your approach to business and life is not inherently better than any other. Not everyone functions as you do, and that your way isn’t necessarily the best way to operate for all scenarios.

People of different backgrounds will approach situations in entirely different manners. The American approach to business is often individualistic, confrontational, and constructed on rigid contracts. These tactics may not fly elsewhere, where healthy collaboration reigns and your verbal word is the highest law. Be aware that differences will exist, and you must remain active in understanding those around you.

Agreeing on a Work Culture

While understanding key cultural differences is crucial to project success, it’s also wise to establish standards as to meeting conventions, status updates, and work expectations. Don’t assume that your team approaches these in the same manner. Establish guidelines early on and get your team to collaborate effectively. Vocalize your expectations to remove tension and to get everyone on the same page.

At the same time, don’t try to pave over real differences in the way your individual team members operate. Be aware of cultural differences and diverse work methodologies to bridge differences in the most positive manner possible. Let everyone bring their unique strengths to the table, but at the same time make sure they know exactly when and where to arrive at that table.

Achieving a Common Language

Though it’s often the case that your team members speak some level of English, you may not always be so lucky. English proficiency levels may also be lower than you’d like, hindering easy communication and slowing down processes as a result. While it may be advantageous for you to learn aspects of the secondary language over the course of long projects, you’ll still need to ensure that work is completed in the process.

While translators can be advantageous in certain situations, it’s not practical to have somebody translating for each member of your team at all times. Though effective for group meetings, where everyone is present and you wouldn’t want to waste time with poor communication, a human translator onsite is often an unnecessary and ineffective tool.

For a team spread across the world, written communication may be all you need. Oftentimes, individuals with little speaking proficiency can get by with understanding the written word. If they aren’t capable of this, then online translation services can often convey enough meaning to get an individual’s point across. By sending emails, chatting with others online or even texting, you’ll be able to converse with all members of your group and mainstain written documentation of everything being said.

This is also an effective way to bring shy/introvert team members out of their shells. People will be much more open to speaking up through email or in chats than they may be in a meeting, especially when a language barrier is involved. Though face-time is always important, sometimes the easiest communication is achieved through newest technological methods.

Managing Multiple Calendars

This often-overlooked aspect of global project management presents an interesting challenge to project managers. With team members spread across the world, it may be nearly impossible to find days when the entire team is at hand. Religious holidays, national holidays, regional work norms, and vacation time can all provide dangerous obstacles to project completion.

While the average American work week may extend well beyond 40 hours, one can’t expect the same from every Latin-American, European, or many any other work force. Members of your team may not be legally capable of extending their work week beyond 37 hours, or may be expected to take off all of August. Other regions may invest even more or fewer hours a week, but regardless you can’t hold the entire global team to the same expectations.

Create an individual calendar for every team member to place expected time off, local holidays, and other events that may eventually come between you and project success. By preparing for delays, you’ll be more capable of delivering projects on time.

Holding Meetings

Modern project management tools, email, online chat, and video conferencing may one day make face-to-face meetings almost obsolete, but there’s something still incredibly valuable to the personal meeting that shouldn’t be ignored. Your team members need this opportunity to interact with one another and to boost their sense of teamwork and collaboration, especially when scattered across the globe.

Meeting can be a challenge when your team is spread across continents, but the potential costs of a failed project or late delivery can vastly outweigh simple travel expenses. Try to make time for team gatherings when possible, and do what you can to increase human interaction wherever possible.      

Managing Different Time Zones

If you’re working with a development engineer in China, an engineer in Los Angeles, and a programmer in the United Kingdom, finding a single time to meet that works for everyone will never be achieved. The simplest solution is just to buck up and let everyone have a turn at the short straw.

By having some of your team come in early, and some stay late, you should be able to accommodate most time zones and project member’s work schedules. Occasionally a member of your team may need to meet in the dead of the night, but as long as you shift the meeting hours and lay this burden on everyone fairly, you should be able to pull it off without upsetting too many of your team members (and their families).

A Final Note

As with any project management issue, it’s imperative that you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of your team members in order to complete projects on time. Spend time getting to know everyone, encourage collaboration and an esprit de corps, and assign work accordingly. Understanding the mix of your team’s skills, experiences, and personalities allows you to adapt your project to the team’s unique DNA.

Different cultures may complement one another, but it’s also possible that they will butt heads. Plan accordingly, be prepared to adapt quickly, and arm yourselves with the right tools and you should be able to pull off any project without too much of a hitch.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx. Since 1996, Journyx has remained committed to helping customers intelligently invest their time and resources to achieve per-person, per-project profitability. Curt earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Virginia Tech in 1987.  As a software programmer fixing bugs for IBM in the early ‘90’s, Curt Finch found that tracking the time it took to fix each bug revealed the per-bug profitability. Curt knew that this concept of using time-tracking data to determine project profitability was a winning idea and something that companies were not doing – yet. Curt created the world’s first web-based timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product offerings in 1997. Curt is an avid speaker and writer. Learn more about Curt at http://journyx.com/company/curtfinch.html.

Total cost of ownership (TCO) is a financial estimate that helps consumers and enterprise managers determine direct and indirect costs of a product or system. TCO goes beyond the initial purchase price or implementation cost to consider the full cost of an asset over its useful life. A TCO analysis often shows there can be a large difference between the price of something and its long term cost.

For example, let’s say you buy a car that’s inexpensive but it breaks down constantly. When you take it to get fixed, you find that the repair shop is far away and the parts are costly. It also loses value faster than other cars that cost more when it comes to resale. Your time is also valuable and all of the trips to the repair shop should be taken into consideration, too.

So, let’s do the math.

– Car A

• Initial cost: $10,000
• 5 years of repairs, plus normal maintenance: $7,500
• Value after 5 years when you sell it: $1,000

· Car B

• Initial cost: $20,000
• 5 years of repairs, plus normal maintenance: $2,000
• Value after 5 years when you sell it: $10,000

The five year TCO of Car A is $16,500, whereas the five year TCO of Car B is $12,000. Even though Car B was more expensive up front, it costs less in the long run.

How TCO is Calculated and Used to Make Decisions

My company uses a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that tracks leads, sales and customer support issues. It’s been used in the company for a very long time and is deeply embedded in our company’s operations. However, the usability and performance are quite poor, and the monthly cost is exorbitant. There are plenty of competitors to this CRM system and the time has come to consider other options.

In order to make this decision, the TCO of each of the potential solutions must be understood. The future costs need to be considered for a set period of time. Let’s consider four options:

• Option 1 – Stick with the existing vendor and stop whining
• Option 2 – Build a solution internally, perhaps using open source tools (e.g. SugarCRM) embedded in the solution.
• Option 3 – Choose a huge mega-vendor like Microsoft
• Option 4 – Choose a small vendor that will pay closer attention to our needs

This scenario presumes that these options exist and are somewhat rational. Since this is purely hypothetical, let’s pretend they do.

How would these solutions compare over a five year timeframe?

For Option 1, the cost of the monthly fees is known and we can estimate how the fees might increase over the next few years. Does that mean we understand our costs? Not really. An estimate of the opportunity cost is needed – this includes all of the things the solutions don’t do that we wish they did. Additionally, any company has the potential risk of merger, hostile takeover, sale of the company, division, shutting down or alteration of the availability of the technology in some way that may adversely affect their customers’ operations.

Each of these options has different costs for hardware, backups and operating system software. Software installed by your IT staff in your own company’s environment will have all of these costs. On the other hand, solutions provided directly to your browser from the vendor’s system (Software as a Service, also known as SaaS or cloud solutions) usually only have a monthly fee and any web browser will work with the software.

Option 2. Vendor risk is another factor. Will your chosen technology vendor still be supporting the product in a few years? Large vendors’ obsolete technology platforms all the time, and this is always a risk. Assign a dollar value to this risk – it is part of the TCO for each vendor. If a system is built internally, the expert who understands the software better than anyone else employed by your company. What if that person leaves?

Let’s take backup and disaster recovery, for example. In option one, there isn’t as much worry about disaster recovery because the vendor offers the CRM system on a SaaS basis. Customers don’t have to conduct backups because they trust the vendor to do this. Most SaaS vendors are pretty good about this, and their SAS70 certification should explain the procedures they follow to the customer.

Option 3. The large vendor has a high cost of backup. Most companies overestimate their disaster recovery capabilities. Disk drives go bad all the time. Their “mean time between failure” (MTBF) is typically just a few years. It’s surprising how bad some IT shops are at this difficult but critical process.

Option 4. Building a solution internally, has all the backup challenges of option 3, plus the necessity of backing up the source code modifications that have been constructed internally, test suites that have been built, and anything else associated with building and maintaining an in-house software system.

Be Aware of Vendors’ Hidden Agendas

All managers need to have some system of TCO in place when making decisions on choosing solutions. Vendors will try to manipulate and obfuscate the true TCO of their solution and it will be different for each installation. Customers must be sure that THEY own the definition and calculation of TCO and don’t allow the vendor to drive the agenda.

For example, some of the costs, like risk and opportunity, are nebulous and hard to define. Vendors will try to make other vendors’ solutions look risky. Large companies like to say that dealing with small companies is riskier, but this is not necessarily the case. Large firms can evaporate overnight (think Wachovia, Lehmen Brothers). Additionally, large vendors may not view you as large enough of a client to matter if they ignore your needs. This scenario sheds a positive light on Option 4 – choosing a small vendor.

Opportunity cost (e.g. if we build this ourselves, will we be gaining new opportunities in the marketplace or will it distract us?) needs to be assigned a dollar value, which is difficult to do. But customers must come up with some estimate of opportunity cost for each solution being considered.

In the long run, you’re the boss. It’s all up to you. You get to define the costs and make sure they are a good representation of the issues your business faces. Don’t let a vendor’s salesperson take over the process from you. But don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Vendors do know the weaknesses of their competitors and can be very useful in this regard.

Putting the TCO Calculation Into Practice

Consider this list of costs and risks that are frequently overlooked and could differ substantially for the options described above. Obviously you can’t do this analysis in a time crunch for more than a very few possible solutions.

– Software Cost

• License cost + base/server cost
• Client side cost (if any)
• Integration
• Purchasing process (how many vendors?)
• Migration

– Operating Costs

• Training
• Insurance
• IT staff
• Management time
• Electricity
• Floor space
• Outage costs
• Back-up/Recovery cost

– Annual Cost

• Maintenance

– Server cost

– Other product costs that are required, like a database, web-server, etc. (Even if you already have these things, you might need more, or to keep or support them longer.)

– Risk cost

– Opportunity cost

Happy planning!

Don’t forget to leave your comments below

Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx (http://pr.journyx.com), a provider of web-based time tracking, project accounting and resource management software designed to guide customers to per-person, per-project profitability. Curt earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech in 1987 and he has been creating software or managing software teams ever since. An avid speaker and author, Finch’s book, “All Your Money Won’t Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource” is available in most online bookstores. He is also a blogger for Inc. (http://www.inc.com/tech-blog), and you can follow him on Twitter @clf99. Curt can be contacted at [email protected].

Project management technology has been around for years now, so the problem of project execution must be basically solved, right?  Wrong.  The Standish Group has found that 68% of technology projects failed in 2009[¹].  Does this mean that project management solutions are just a waste of time?

The truth is that project management technology is only as good as the processes that support it.  The only way to improve project execution rates is to look at the root causes of project failure and implement the necessary changes that will allow the technology to work.  Here are a few of the top ways to accomplish this in your organization.

1. Ignorance of True Per-Project Cost

We all know that people hate to track their time for a variety of reasons.  Most find it to be a tedious exercise and believe that it takes time away from more important work.  Others might feel suspicious that management wants to keep an eye on them.  One of the biggest reasons is often that employees simply do not know what the time data will be used for or why they are tracking it in the first place, so why bother?  This is a problem because time data can provide cost insight that you cannot obtain any other way.

If you do not know how much time your team members are spending on various projects, you do not really know how much the projects cost.  A project that is a large resource drain can be much more expensive than the numbers in the budget indicate.  Not only that, but when the boss tells you to cut 10% somewhere, how will you know where to cut if you do not know where your profit lies? Having employees track their time by project – and more specifically, by task – gives you the knowledge necessary to make the right decisions.  In this case, it is not enough to have a time tracking software solution.  You must also obtain widespread employee adoption, because the system is only as good as the data entered into it.  Usually this can be achieved with an explanation of how the data will benefit the organization or some kind of rewards system.  It is also essential to integrate this data with project status and cost reports for analysis purposes.

2. Poor Resource Management

Most automated systems fail because they try to get people to track time only for payroll, DCAA compliance, billing or project accounting.  This forces managers to use a variety of systems, resulting in employees tracking their time in multiple places and not being too happy about it.  Not to mention the fact that these disconnected islands of data are not very useful for analysis or planning. 

If, however, you have all of the time, project and billing data in the same system, you can understand who is over- and under-allocated, who is behind on their work, and who is available to work on your project next month – all important issues for a project manager to know.

Not only that, but a technology solution that incorporates resource schedules and allows you to conduct “what-if analysis” before assigning work provides project managers with a huge advantage.  They will be able to see the impact of their projects before scheduling them, allowing them to avoid unnecessary risk and only implement plans that are feasible.  For example, if a project manager puts a potential project plan into the system and finds that with the current timeline, resources will be too constrained, he or she can adjust it accordingly before actually scheduling the work.

3. No Estimate Feedback Loop 

Whenever you ask someone how far along they are on a project task, the answer is always the same: 90%.  Rather, the right question to ask is, “How many actual hours of work remain to complete this task?”  Once you have this data, it should go back into your project plan.  The more you reinforce estimates with actual data, the better your estimation will be for future projects.

I recently spoke with a project manager at a well-known beverage corporation who told me that though his company had purchased a large PPM solution, people were still entering their time in multiple systems.  This leaves them unable to feed actuals from different departments and groups back into the central project plan for up-to-date status and improved estimation.  After spending so much time and money on a PPM solution, they are not getting any of the promised benefits.  This is just another example of how technology will not magically fix project issues without the right processes in place to support it.

4. Communication and Collaboration Issues

Microsoft SharePoint sales have been exploding lately, and the simple reason for this is that managing multiple people and projects across departments, companies and even time zones is extremely difficult.  Everyone has their own PM methodology, technology system, culture and habits, and you, the project manager, have to accommodate for all of it.  SharePoint and other tools like it can be extremely helpful, but ultimately, communication can still fail across the board.  This is a human problem, not a technology problem, and the project manager must address it as such.

5. Balancing Quality, Schedule and Cost

Have you ever heard the question, “Do you want it good, fast or cheap?”  You might add value delivery to this equation as well.  For example, if a wedding cake shows up seven hours late, it is worthless.  At every step of the way, project managers have to ensure that they are still going to be able to deliver something useful in the end. 

These days, the world is moving so fast that you have to constantly check to see if you are still on target for delivering value, even if quality, schedule and cost constraints are met.  Technology cannot do this for you; it is a subtle, complicated process that requires market research and an understanding of your customers, for starters. 

The Power of Project Management Technology

Project management technology is at the most advanced that it has ever been, providing all kinds of functionality and benefits to the project manager.  Yet it takes a bit more than a software solution to solve the project execution problem. It takes a quality project manager who can implement the correct processes and manage people effectively.  The right project management solution can be a powerful tool, but only in the hands of someone qualified to wield it.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below

April Boland is the Resource Manager for Journyx, Inc.  She is a former Jeannette K. Watson Fellow who currently develops and coordinates communications strategies to meet organizational objectives. Boland also authors the Journyx Project Management Blog (http://www.project-management-blog.com).

1 http://www1.standishgroup.com/newsroom/chaos_2009.php

CNN recently published an article about the aftermath of the recession, claiming that the economy is “finally back in gear.”  What does this mean for businesses like yours?  Projects that were sidelined for the past year or two could come off the bench, and there might be more money to go around.  Great news, right?  It depends on how ready you are to make the most of this new opportunity.  Are you confident that you will be able to put the right people on these projects and make the right decisions about how to spend this money? 

Successful project execution requires quality data on who is available and qualified to do the work, when specific tasks will be completed, and which projects are in danger and why.  Without this data, project managers are often scrambling to keep tabs on everything and address problems before it is too late.  Here are a few questions you need to ask to be sure that you are getting the data you need and putting it to good use in your organization.

1. Which Projects Do We Choose?

Now that money is not as tight as it was last year, how can you be sure that you are investing it in the right projects rather than wasting it on projects that will bring in a minimal ROI?  It is easy when you have the right data.  Believe it or not, simple project time data can tell you which of your past projects were successful and which were failures, how many people worked on these projects and how much time they spent, and which of your clients are profitable and which are not.  Without this information, you cannot ensure success.  Therefore, the only way to understand project profitability is to understand true project cost by having employees track their time by task.

Let’s use the example of a company that had 100 projects in progress before the recession hit.  They had a budget of $1 million, but it was cut in half, forcing them to shelve half of their projects.  With the recovery, they are given the green light to resume half of the projects that were cut (or a quarter of the overall projects planned before the recession).  Which projects do they choose?  Someone’s ‘pet project’?  A project that will mean the least amount of stress for the project manager?  This can happen, but will not guarantee success for the company.

Rather, if the team members were tracking their time on these projects before they were postponed, project managers can see right away which projects were on schedule and budget and which ones were not.  If the projects had not yet been started, perhaps the project manager could look at past projects that are similar in scope, budget or other factors.  Which projects have the best chance of bringing in the right ROI and making management happy? 

If, however, team members were not tracking their time, don’t worry – it is never too late to start.  After all, it can help you avoid getting into this situation the next time around.  Once you understand your company’s profitability level on a per-customer and per-project basis, you know exactly where your profits are coming from and will be able to focus resources more effectively.  There is no sense in wasting time and money on projects that are just not profitable enough. 

2. Who is Available to Do the Work?

Once you decide which projects to schedule, you need to be sure to execute them successfully, which requires, among other things, effective resource management.  First, project managers must have constant visibility into resource allocation.  Projects cannot succeed unless the right people are available to work on them.  Allocation data enables project managers to make informed decisions about who can handle the workload and who cannot, which also helps to prevent worker burnout.  Project managers must also be able to search for resources by skill, location and other criteria.  Projects require specific types of workers for each task and having insight into not only who is available, but what they can offer is crucial.

Remember the company we used in the earlier example?  Let’s say that the project manager has isolated the 25 most profitable projects and is about to schedule them.  Before doing so, however, he/she looks at resource availability and realizes that while Project A requires 10 developers, most of them are already allocated to other projects or are out on vacation.  In reality, there are only six developers available to work on Project A at this time.  Can Project A succeed on time and on budget?  Of course not!  If the project manager had gone ahead and scheduled Project A without this knowledge, it would have been a complete failure. 

3. How Are Our Projects Going?

As mentioned before, once assigned to a project, team members must track their time by task.  This provides hard data that helps project managers understand costs and estimate future projects with increased accuracy.  It also gives them the advantage of identifying problems early on and addressing them in a timely fashion.  

Project managers cannot keep projects on track if they do not have key information such as how many hours remain for particular tasks.  Also, management is constantly asking project managers to provide status information so that they can make critical strategic decisions.  This is extremely important because, according to experts, this economic recovery will take time.  A recent article from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania notes, “Most financial experts at Wharton and elsewhere insist that the much-talked about recovery is not here yet, despite some of the first hopeful data in months — and they remain concerned that the recovery will be weaker and take longer to gain momentum than past slowdowns.” In other words, things are looking up, but it is still necessary for companies to stay on top of their game and use hard data in calculating the best strategy rather than simple guesswork.

Consider what would happen if the company previously mentioned starts to move ahead with the 25 projects.  As the project manager tracks Project B, he/she realizes that 15% of the allocated budget has been spent and only 5% of the project work has been completed.  Can you imagine that the project manager did not have this data, and only found out later that the project was over budget? This is just one example of how real time data enables project managers to fix problems before they start.

The Time is Now

Project failure is expensive and can end in disaster regardless of the economic climate.  Just because the recession is almost over does not mean that we can all take a deep breath and relax.  Rather, businesses need to take this opportunity to weed out the unprofitable work and improve project management processes for increased profits and success. [¹]

[¹] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2261

Don’t forget to leave your comments below

Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx (http://pr.journyx.com), a provider of Web-based software located in Austin, Texas, that tracks time and project accounting solutions to guide customers to per-person, per-project profitability. Journyx has thousands of customers worldwide and is the first and only company to establish Per Person/Per Project Profitability (P5), a proprietary process that enables customers to gather and analyze information to discover profit opportunities. In 1997, Curt created the world’s first Internet-based timesheet application – the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt is an avid speaker and author, and recently published “All Your Money Won’t Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource.” Curt authors a project management blog at www.project-management-blog.com, and you can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/clf99.