About International projects

The Challenges of International Project Management

The globe has shrunk significantly over the past two and a half decades, making it normal practice to collaborate on programs with foreign collaborators. The consequence for project management is that they must handle various categories of parties participating in a project. International programs may be exciting and satisfying, but they come with their own set of obstacles.

Language Barriers

The vocabulary used in conversation can be a problem when handling foreign ventures. More frequently than not, members of the project team would be unable to speak in the same language. This could imply a lot of explaining to participants who do not understand the preferred vocabulary, causing the project to be delayed. Time is another challenge when working internationally with people of different cultures. Time interpretation differs across cultures (Oertig & Buergi, 2006). For instance, while some team members may value punctuality, others may not have the same view and thus creating confusion on schedules like meetings.

Differences in Roles and Responsibilities

Additionally, role and responsibilities differs across countries and cultures. An example is the role of project manager, which may be highly regarded in some countries but not in others. Team members originating from countries with extreme hierarchical structures may fail to take direction from the project manager due to the view that his or her role is not important. Moreover, challenge in the international context may come in form of tools used. For some cultures, tools for instance messaging such as skype may hold a lot of importance unlike in other cultures. Additionally, managing virtual teams may pose a great challenge to the project manager. It takes a lot of commitment for a project manager to be able to handle such teams, which are very common in the international projects (Oertig & Buergi, 2006).

Reference

Oertig, M., & Buergi, T. (2006). The challenges of managing cross-cultural virtual project teams. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 12(1/2), 23-30.