Archive for April 20, 2012


Developing a Globalized Communication Strategy

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April 20, 2012

Project managers and project teams that function globally must develop a sound communication strategy in order to ensure success. Author Jean Carlo Binder, in his book, “Global Project Management: Communication, Collaboration and Management Across Borders”, extols the virtues of developing a good strategy early on in order to “reduce misunderstandings between stakeholders from different country and company cultures communicating over distance. The main interested parties must work together to define this strategy, creating the project communications management plan”(Binder, 2007). Binder lists the three main steps to prepare a global communications strategy as “identifying the types of information to be communicated, gathering the communication requirements from the key stakeholders, and determining how the communication will effectively happen” (Binder, 2007).  Just as organizations have learned that “effective communication among people from the same culture is often difficult; ours and other businesses must accept that it is extremely difficult when attempting to communicate with people from a different culture who do not speak English, and have different attitudes, ideas, assumptions, perceptions, and ways of doing things. One’s chances for miscommunication increase enormously “(Adekola & Sergi, 2007).

Adekola, A., & Sergi, B. (2007). Global business management: a cross-cultural perspective. (p. 173). Ashgate Publishing Group.

Binder, J. C. (2007). Global project management, communication, collaboration and management across borders. (p. 101). Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing, Ltd.

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Social Media and Globalization

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I’m curious as to the relevance that social media may have in effecting globalization, particularly with regard to the current, younger generation, to whom the world has been made smaller due to technology?  Businesses – project managers in particular – are becoming aware of the communication and collaborative advantages of social media, as it allows team members to engage one another, even across many time zones (Harrin, 2011). Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn allow team members to gain an insight into each other’s backgrounds – both cultural and professional – attitudes and beliefs, and status.  In my experience, as I gain a growing number of multi-cultural affiliations, I have become more and more adept with the social mores associated with the medium – almost as if we are moving toward a universal, social media language that defies cultural barriers.  Obviously, to be an effective tool, one would still need to possess cultural competency.  However, just the act of changing your social media status might be a simple and efficient way to help track a project’s progress.

Harrin, E. (2011, January 11). Social media tools for project teams. Retrieved from http://www.pmi.org/eNews/Post/2011_01-14/Social-Media-Tools-for-Project-Teams.html

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Who Should Manage Change?

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I came across an interesting article by Lynn Crawford and Anat Hassner Nahmias entitled,” Competencies for Managing Change”, in which the authors discuss which discipline is best suited to manage organizational change.  The authors contend that there is a degree of enmity  that exists between Project Managers, Change Managers, and, to a certain extent, Senior Management as to who should be managing business change.  Competencies from both the project management arena and those of change management are analyzed and an attempt is made to identify a synthesis of the two fields.  That synthesis includes the following characteristics: Leadership, Stakeholder management, Planning, Team selection/team development, Communication, Decision-making and problem-solving, Cultural awareness/skills, and Project management skills (Crawford & Nahmias, 2010). Considering the Authors’ analysis, who is best suited to lead organizational change and is it worthwhile for PM’s to adopt change management’s “theory-rich” skills?

Crawford, L., & Nahmias, A. H. (2010). Competencies for managing change. International Journal of Project Management, 28(4), 405–412.

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