Cultural considerations in project planning

The impact of culture differences on a project team cannot be overstated. The sooner we recognize that people with different cultural background will

- express themselves differently
- make decisions differently
- view/deal with issues differently
- have (inhibited by) unique social norms.
- have different festive celebrations that would impact project schedule.

and build these considerations into our project planning, the better will be the collaboration be in a project team, and the greater the efficiency of the team.

Opening my account with the following...

Guys, I know I've been a little (read: *very*) slow in starting.. but here's my 1st contribution with what I've learnt about managing a virtual project team:

1. Strong Project Mgmt/Program Mgmt is vital.

2. Keep team engaged and updated. Communicate, communicate, communicate!!

• Every team member should know what they are supposed to deliver, and when.
• What's the progress
• What's next
• What's the status
• How to get it started again (if project is going south like ours is)

I just learnt of the term "mushroom management" i.e keep 'em in the dark, and give 'em *fertiliser* from time to time. Nobody should be left guessing.

3. Team Norms and Ground rules are important, in fact in a virtual team it's perhaps the only thing the PM/PgM has to fall back on. Commit to it and use it effectively to guide, persuade, goad (or even coerce) team in the desired direction. In our case, we have team agreement.

4. Meet up as often as possible, whether virtually or face to face.

There.. my 1st contribution out of the way. Now to go on to other deliverables.