1. 1 Page

2. Managing a Diverse Team - Project Manager‟s
Challenge & Pain - A real One!!
Neelam Pandey – Assistant General Manager, Suzlon Energy

3. Contents
1. Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 4
2. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 4
3. Cultural Differences ..................................................................................................................... 7
4. Communication Gaps .................................................................................................................. 8
5. Absence of a Unified Goal ........................................................................................................ 10
6. Un-Nurtured Trust ...................................................................................................................... 10
7. Lack of Training Disciplines to Work as a Team ................................................................... 11
8. References : ............................................................................................................................... 14
9. Author‟s Profile: .......................................................................................................................... 15
3 Page

4. 1. Abstract
The world is becoming smaller every day, advancement of the technology in communications have
contributed to the shrinking of Global market. The Project teams are not limited to the company
premises but are geographically distributed.
As companies are becoming more and more diverse it‟s becoming more and more important for
companies to understand and manage the diversity. The people of different background, races,
religion creates diverse workforce. Today Project teams are too large, too dispersed, too diverse, and
just plain too complex to manage using typical project management techniques alone, Managing and
tracking the Project work and getting the work done through the diversified team is one of the most
important area, and Yes a Pain area too for today‟s Project Manager.
Applying the effective team management practices to diverse groups at the right time is in itself a
complex endeavour. Successful teams are the result of many elements coming together, including
adaptive team leadership, optimal team structure, right team composition, a disciplined culture, co-
location of core team leaders, effective collaboration, communication, and coordination, and patience
to steer the groups as each evolves from a collection of people, into a great team. The project
leadership role becomes as much about team leadership and group development, as about project
and requirements management.
To conclude today‟s Project team are Complex, diversified, having integration challenges and to
overcome this a PM has to do the Group development by becoming a true team leader and
leveraging team potential Using team collaboration, communication and coordination tools and
techniques.
2. Introduction
As the businesses are exploding across the global, the team in today‟s corporate are not confined to
the four walls of the offices. Now days with the boom in the communication and IT industry the
concept of the virtual team has become a reality.
Fig 1: Diversified, Multicultural Project Teams
4 Page

5. The team members are spread across the globe, with different national, religion, gender, geography,
and dialect and too diverse. Making such diverse team aligned to the Company strategic goal and
then to the Project objectives is a difficult task for Project Manager‟s.
Alignment to Project goals is important for any project success, and thus it is rather more important
that the whole team get aligned and be at same level of understanding. But Managing a diversified
team is indeed the biggest challenges a Project Manager‟s faces in managing any project team
Managing diversity in project team as thus becomes so important in the interest of the project.
What is Workplace Diversity?
Diversity encompasses all the ways in which people differs. Individuals differ in both ways, based on
personal and the organization characteristics. Fig shows the three majors ways of diversity
Personal Characteristics Organisation related
Characteristics
Primary
Secondary
Work Place Diversity
Fig 2: Components of workplace diversity
The complex interactions of these characteristics gives rise to workplace diversity and provides the
basis upon which to leverage the bottom line benefits .A diverse team will operate differently to a
homogeneous team –Difference in the communication style, the mix of mental models and value sets
and a tendency towards in group out group behavior and social categorization all affects the ways
diverse team develop and function.
Fig: 3: Work force diversity
5 Page

6. The Definition and Impact of globalization on the project Team
The definition of global project management emphasizes the need for company leaders to recognize
the cultural implications of mixing skilled workers from many nations, along with the tactical steps
required for teams to collaborate effectively.
Globalization rules the business world today. Organizations work on onsite-offshore model to make
use of the labor market effectively. This model brings in talents from various geographies in lower
rates. Expanding the business by opening offices in different locations is reason organizations prefer
working on globalized model. Project managers are put in a situation to handle projects from these
locations which requires handling people from different backgrounds. Managing widely spread teams
in harmony is not an easy task. Different time zones also need to be considered. This has been an
area of concern for most business enterprises in today's world.
Pain areas of Managing a Diversified Virtual distributed Project Team and its way forward:
Decisive issues need to be addressed in order to draw together diverse individual competencies into
a unified set of knowledge and skills, all working for the attainment of a common goal. Hence knowing
the most common and critical challenges that confront the global team leader is of great relevance in
today‟s project management trends. These are:
Cultural differences
Communication Gaps
Absence of a Unified Goal
Un-nurtured Trust
Lack of Training Disciplines to Work as a Team
Challenges of Globalised team
The graph depicts the challenges faced by the Global virtual disbursed teams
Sense of Isolation 66%
Difficulty seeing the whole picture 77%
Difficulty Establishing Rapport and trust 81%
Absence of Collegiality 85%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Fig4: Shows the challenges faced by Virtual team members
6 Page

7. 3. Cultural Differences
Fig:5: Cultural Teamwork Style difference between US & China
Cultural competency is not only a matter of knowing the influences of traditions and racial heritage. It
is also about the ability to distinguish individual differences acquired as personality traits from those
that were borne from a collective set of cultural experiences and upbringing. It's important to
understand that culture is basically the development of socialization processes that were embedded
in a person‟s mind and form part of his thinking and behavior.
Studies made by Eva Razvigorova and Gottfried Wolf-Lauden ("East-West Joint Ventures: The New
Business Environment", 1991 Blackwell Publications) revealed that 70 percent of failed cross-cultural
ventures are attributable to the seriousness of cultural differences. Accordingly, seven out of ten
failures were attributable to the behavior patterns of the leaders or managers.
One of the challenges that a Project Manager faces is the ability by which he can best use his training
and the technological tools at hand in navigating a global virtual diversified team in real-world
operations. Some examples of cultural difference include but are not limited to:
Giving weight to family values as a metric for gauging the level of trust that is given to a
relationship.
Body language to show respect or disrespect in addressing or communicating with others. Where
bowing and avoiding eye contact is a show of respect, it can be misconstrued by most westerners as
a sign of insincerity in a culture of “looking into one‟s eyes” as a manifestation of openness or
honesty.
7 Page

8. Fig:6 : Cultural Body languages difference in greeting
Sensitivity to time and tolerance to time pressure, in which the person at work is likely to multi-task
or a have a tendency to mix work with pleasure, often with a mindset that his skills are enhanced
by the adrenaline rush experienced when there is little time left. This, however, may not always be
an individual trait but borne from a collective cultural habit of being late at meeting appointments or
deadlines.
Way Forward: Learn How to Take an Advantage of the Cultural & Regional Barriers
Global project managers often get into trouble by not knowing how to manage the cultural and
regional differences. If you learn how to make better use of these differences, it will be highly
beneficial to the project improvement. It is an opportunity for each member to grow personally as well
professionally by adopting the cultural intricacies. Associating with global teams means working in
partnership with people who has the required skill levels and experience that is necessary to be a part
of the project, but use different languages and possess various cultural values. This difference
creates a major hurdle for the teams to bond in a personal level or develop a professional bonhomie.
Conducting sessions to understand different cultures and the business jargons used in each region
will be very effective. Not only it creates an opportunity to learn new cultures but also develops a team
spirit. Respecting the values each culture and region bring in and making an advantage of these
differences to the project is very important. A high level of understanding and a support system can
be created by using the cultural differences. For example, sending a message to those work from
India on a festival day like Diwali (festival of lights) or Holi (festival of colors) will help in creating a
personal touch among teams in this region. If you are conducting a meeting around that time,
encourage teams from India to talk few words about how they celebrate that particular festival. The
major advantage in adopting the cultural values is the spirit it creates among the teams.
4. Communication Gaps
Leadership competency in communicating with a global team is largely different in a team setting
where the members are co-located. Lack of skills for discerning the appropriate communication style
and technological tools can break down trust. Trust is an essential component for maintaining
productive networking activities and for spawning other development processes.
A Project Manager‟s skill in communicating includes the ability to project a role model who possesses
the universally accepted traits of a good leader:
8 Page

9. charismatic or compelling,
value-based; one who takes into consideration the core values of the organization as part of a
culture
Emotionally intelligent, which is described as the ability to overcome the stresses of cross-cultural
interactions and recognize the factors to be nurtured for adaptation and growth.
Team-oriented
humane or caring
participative in the sense that he or she involves the members in decision-making processes
Instinctively, team members measure the leader‟s competency and style against his method and
manner of communication. The clarity and timeliness of conveying instructions plus the suitability of
medium used in transmitting instructions make up for the limitations of not having non-virtual face-to-
face meetings.
Fig 7: Indicates what can lead to communication failure in a project
Conflicts arise from the uneven distribution of information, and may further be interpreted as
discrimination. Basically, project management problems in a global context are hurdled by one‟s
ability to communicate effectively and can be assessed by following areas of intercultural sensitivity:
If the leader experiences positive feelings toward interacting with members coming from different
cultures;
If positive responses or reciprocity of interactions toward the global leader are elicited from people
of different cultures;
If there is successful attainment of a goal and eventually, successful completion of a project;
If cross-cultural barriers are managed without suffering from culture-contact stress.
9 Page

10. Way Forward: Create a Communication Plan to Manage Geographical Limitations
The most common problem faced by the Project Managers with global, Diversified, Virtual teams is
the lack of personal touch. The physical presence in the work environment makes a great difference
in real time projects. The clarity lagging in the important tasks is common among globally distributed
project teams as the project managers often fail to address the communication issues. The
geographical differences and various time zones often limit the progression. It is important for the
project managers to create a communication plan appropriately. The correct communication helps a
great deal in managing the project teams that work from different locations.
5. Absence of a Unified Goal
Failure to overcome cultural and language barriers contribute largely to the inability of team members
to comprehend the exact goal or mission of the global team. This can lead to lack of agreement and
cohesion on ideas being explored or being creatively developed. It can likewise result in overlapping
of ideas and redundancies.
Lack of unity in achieving a common goal often leads to participations that are based on different
perceptions on why the project is being carried out. Others may view a project as a humanitarian
mission while another sees it as a political agenda.
Most often, building trust among team members is difficult to achieve since there is an incomplete
basis on which to measure the degree of dependence or reliance placed on each other‟s integrity and
ability.
To be effective, a navigator of a global team project should possess the competency to steer
members of diverse backgrounds to work toward a common goal. This can only be done by
encouraging everyone to assume a participative stance in order to be aware of the values of different
cultural perspectives and approaches.
Way Forward: Each member is given an opportunity to highlight significances or explain the
practicality of adopting a particular stance based on the relevance of his or her knowledge, e.g., the
local market and its buying public or international laws for standards of safety. The main guideline in
coming up with ideas to broach or courses of actions to take is the overall agreement that it is the
best set of solutions to adopt for the purpose of achieving a common goal.
6. Un-Nurtured Trust
Team members may start out as optimistic and all too willing to contribute their best to achieve
success. A Project Manager may be charismatic enough with his communication methods to
encourage team participation as well as put values to what is practicable and logical. However, the
leader's inability to show genuine concern is tantamount to insincerity or lack of integrity. Often, the
indicators surface once the pressures of culture-contact set in.
Way Forward: The Use of Technological Tools, Internet Portals and Messaging Devices: Lack
of trust as one of the Project management problems can be addressed by converging collective
competencies via online sharing of documents. The ability of a Project manager to employ
technological tools for planning, organizing and monitoring project developments and status brings
10 Page

11. openness and straightforward coordination. This comes with the understanding that the competency
of the global project leader includes reviewing the measures in place for data security and the
observance of international laws that pertain to sharing documents online as well as outside of
territorial jurisdictions.
Fig:8: Importance of Trust in a Project environment
There are no hard and fast rules to follow in nurturing trust among team members, but often they start
on a personal level. Online collaboration often compels team members to do their best behavior and
put their best foot forward. Learning the culture of team work via online collaboration can virtually
build a global team‟s trust among team members, leading to the attainment of effectively converging
varying global competencies.
7. Lack of Training Disciplines to Work as a Team
This aspect is often overlooked once team members have started to work together as a team that
relies on cross-cultural competencies. Team members acquire basic training as individuals and their
expertise includes managing the drawbacks in their fields of expertise. A global virtual team is
different since there is now a set of collective efforts dispersed in remote geographical locations
coupled with cross-cultural adaptations.
Training initiatives cover the operational environment by which the group will share information and
assumption of responsibilities in ensuring data security, privacy policies and compliance with territorial
laws for exported or imported data.
Way Forward: Get Help from Global Project Consulting Services
Some organizations choose to take the help of consultants who conduct specialized, short-term
training programs. Bringing together the key project team members from different locations to attend
these sessions will be highly boosting.
11 Page

12. These programs help to:
Develop trust across multicultural workforce
Develop better communication with the teams
Control errors associated with translation of critical documents
Segregate work responsibilities among virtual teams
Minimize animosity among team members when meetings are held
Realize the issues created due to dispersed working environment
Develop strategies to make vastly-distributed teams to be more productive
Deploy processes to meet work deadlines
Tools used in these short-term training programs include real-life exercises, discussions,
presentations, simulations, and project-based activities.
Rounding Up the Drawbacks and Their Solutions:
To summarize this problems within the global setting, global project leaders should possess team
management capabilities for discerning which cultural traits, traditions and knowledge create positive
impacts as well as knowing when and where to draw the line. The key elements to address are the
barriers that prevent the entire team from reaching out and understanding the language, traditions
and norms regarded as non-universal.
The use of technological tools should take into consideration the applications, resources, training
initiatives and security measures that allow intercultural participation in the most straightforward
manner. The objective is to converge all skills and talents into a single set of collective competencies
geared at working toward the successful completion of project goals.
Case Study: Project Success: Boeing 777
Project Success – Case Studies
When Boeing approved the 777 project, they knew that their design and manufacturing processes
would have to change. The ones used in the past produced good but not great project results, and
most would not score well when measured objectively against a CSF test. If Boeing was to design
and build a significantly different and competitive aircraft, and if they hoped to score higher on the
CSF scale, they would have to change their project management culture. And this is precisely what
they did. Perhaps the most significant change was the creation of a new and collaborative approach
to team work. The changes were successful and the 777 proved to be one of the most successful
aircraft in the history of commercial aviation.
Boeing 777
Today, commercial aircraft manufacturing is dominated by Airbus and Boeing. It is an industry
characterized by intense competition, high product development costs, high market risk, and deferred
12 Page

13. profits. Risks are high because there are few customers, and if the major airlines of the world shun a
new plane, there are simply not enough smaller airlines to rescue the project from failure.
Indeed, development costs are so high that hundreds of planes must be sold before the fixed costs of
design and development can be recovered. For example, Airbus needs to sell 420 of its new A380
planes to break even, a milestone that will take many years to achieve..
Boeing Approves the 777 Project
In 1990 Boeing made the decision to develop a new family of aircraft. Designed to bridge the gap
between the 767 and 747 family of planes, the 777 (also called the „triple seven‟) would be a long-
range wide-body aircraft capable of carrying between 283 and 368 passengers and with a range from
5,235 to 9,380 nautical miles (9,695 to 17,372 km).
The 777 would be designed using the latest three dimensional digital imaging technology. It would be
powered by lighter twin engines, the most powerful ever built, and designed to be 20 percent more
fuel efficient than its predecessors. The airframe, some of which was constructed with new composite
materials, would further add to its efficient use of fuel.
The budget would be over $6 billion US and more than 10,000 people would be involved in the
project. To appreciate the size of the project as well as the size of the aircraft, manufacturing facilities
would cover an area equivalent to over 70 football fields.
Risk Mitigation
Boeing would take several steps to spread the financial and marketing risk. While they would
manufacture the flight deck and forward section of the cabin, the wing, tail and the engine nacelles in
their own plants, they would subcontract 70 percent of the project to suppliers throughout the world.
Subcontractors would include Alenia in Italy, ASTA in Australia, BAE Systems in UK, Bombardier
Shorts in UK, Embraer in Brazil, Japanese aerospace companies, Kaman in USA, Korean Air,
Northrop Grumman in USA and Singapore Aerospace.
Second, Boeing would involve eight of the world‟s largest airlines as strategic partners: Nippon
Airways, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, Japan Airlines, Qantas,
and United Airlines. It was an approach that would prove instrumental in designing an aircraft that
would not only appeal to passengers but provide the airlines with a more flexible plane to meet their
changing markets. For example, the interior of the aircraft was designed with curved panels, larger
overhead bins, and indirect lighting. And the dimensions of the windows were increased to become
the largest of any current commercial airliner. Then "Flexibility Zones," were added. Water, electrical,
pneumatic, and other hook-ups were placed throughout the cabin in such a way that the airline could
quickly move seats, galleys and lavatories when it was necessary to reconfigure the cabin.
Open Organization
By involving outsiders, Boeing changed the way in which teams were configured. Now, they were
open to wider participation and included engineers, procurement staff, manufacturing staff, customers
and suppliers. It was a strategy that made it difficult to ignore internal and external recommendations
over the project life-cycle.
13 Page

14. This change in team composition was a significant departure from the way in which previous projects
had been managed. It changed the culture of the organization, away from a closed organization, that
was dominated by union work rules and high power distance, to one that was open and encouraged
communication both up and down the hierarchy. In the past, relationships with suppliers were
characterized by competition, suspicion, and distrust. This new approach involved suppliers and
subcontractors as strategic partners and critical participants in a customer-driven design,
development, and manufacturing process.
This open organization also radically changed the way in which the workforce was expected to work
with management. Regardless of where problems occurred, team members were encouraged to bring
their concern to management. If they failed to receive the satisfaction they expected, they were
encouraged to bring the problem to the next highest level and continue moving the problem higher
until they were satisfied that their concerns were addressed.
What effect did these changes have on project success?
This is, of course, always difficult to isolate and conclude, however, as of 2009 more than 780 planes
had been built, making the 777 one of Boeing‟s best selling models. Further, a more balanced
perspective between the customer and engineering design efforts apparently did not compromise
quality standards since there have been no fatalities since the plane‟s introduction in 1995.
Lesson Learned
There is one very interesting lesson that seems to stand out from 777 project. Developing an open
team concept, one that involves representation from many functional areas of the organization and
one that involves customers and suppliers, may not only reduce project failure risk but may also prove
to be instrumental in changing the basic project management culture of an organization.
Involving the customer over the life cycle of any project does not come without its problems. Conflicts
from competing interests emerge, delays are inevitably introduced, costs often increase, and scope
management can become a very real challenge. Yet opening the project management process to
customers and suppliers can be advantageous because it focuses the project squarely on business
objectives
8. References :
[1] Andre Sammartino, Jannie ö”Flynn ,Stephan Nicholas, “Managing diverse work team , a business
model for diversity management”,2002
[2] Lynn Anderson,” Global Project Management--5 Tips to Manage a Global Team”www.nuwave-
tech.com,Feb 2011
[3] Kathleen B. (Kitty) Hass, “How to Manage the Complexities of Large, Diverse Project Teams ”,
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
[4]Michaela Driver , “Diversity and learning in groups: The learning Organization- Vol 3”, 2003
14 Page

15. [5]Edward Godfrey Ochieng, Andrew David Price, “Frame work for managing Multicultural Project
teams”, 2009
[6]April H Reed, Lindaa V Knight “Project risk differences between virtual and Co-located teams”,
March 2010
9. Author’s Profile:
Author‟s of the paper is PMP Certified , a BE Mechanical from Pune
University, India , has the Project Management Experience of 11+
years in the core Manufacturing Industries. Worked with India‟s two
leading auto majors viz Tata Motors and M&M for more than 10 years
and currently working with Suzlon Energy Limited as the AGM in SCM
Purchase.
Email – neelam.pathak@suzlon.com
neelampandey2011@gmail.com
15 Page