The Language of International Project Management

By their very nature, projects are complex.  Obviously, some are more complex than others, but they all have many moving parts and areas of coordination.  International projects add yet another area of complexity.

Even if everyone on the project team is located in the same geographically area and all speak the same language there are other challenges with international teams.  These include, but are not limited to, different accents that are often hard to understand, slang terms, and cultural practices.  These are all items that make complex project conversations even more complex.  The problems are magnified when the team is geographically dispersed over many time zones and several technology solutions are used for communication.

As an example, I once managed a project with team members from Texas, Scotland, France, Australia, and Massachusetts.  In these days, video conferencing wasn’t as widely accepted as it is today, so the meetings were strictly teleconference with everyone speaking English.  We, of course, used email for communication also, but the primary meetings were all via teleconference. 

While we all spoke English, the accents were so diverse nobody could figure out what anyone was saying.  Additionally, since it was a teleconference, often many people would talk at the same time, which magnified the complexity of the situation.  Ultimately, we were able to get the meeting organized and dialed-in and people began to recognize the different accents being used.  This took approximately two weeks though.

This is a skill that can be learned with practice and, frankly, must be learned with today’s projects.  I have traveled all over the world and worked with many different people, so for me, accents have become fairly easy.  However, it is still not uncommon to have people on the team that don’t understand each other and it can frustrate them greatly.

Cultural problems are often much harder to notice and can lead to inadvertently offending people.  One very common problem is Americans working in France.  Americans by nature are often very aggressive and loud and the USA typically works more hours in a year than any other country.  As such, Americans tend to want to get down to business very quickly, but the French are much more work/life balanced and want to get to know people first, often over dinner.  This can lead to Americans seeming very rude.

Ultimately, while there are some things you can do to perform better in these environments, it really comes down to experience.  You just have to have a thick skin and step forward fearlessly and make mistakes.  In doing so you will learn many things about the world we live in and international projects and end up with some great friends all over the planet as well.

In order to take advantage of technology, resources, and talent international projects will continue to exist.  Additionally, they will continue to grow in scope and complexity.  The only thing a project manager can do is embrace this trend and learn from every experience whether you are the kind of person that travels or not.

Your path to business success.