Multiculturalism In Project Management: Challenges And Role Of Project Manager

The Role of Project Manager in a Multi-Cultural Team

Discuss about the Project Management for Journal of Asia-Pacific Business.
 

The aspect, which is related to multiculturalism in the process of project management, can be considered one of the important factors, which alter the normal functionality of the project. In the 21^st century, it was stated as an issue that the project manager has to address in order to fulfill the project objectives. The role of the project manager in this context can be considered as very important and challenging due to the factor of understanding the mentality of the people of other countries is not an easy job in hand (Martinelli and Milosevic 2016). This aspect creates a problem due to the varied level of misunderstanding.

The focus point of the report is to take into consideration different aspects and the role of the project manager in the context of working with multicultural team members.

The project manager who directly communicate with their team member, stakeholder and sponsors directly involve a huge amount of time. The aspect, which is related to the attending of the meeting, scheduling, risk factor detection and resolving the conflict, can be few of the factors, which can be included into the issue. In most of the time, the project manager is not trained to deal with the entire sector.

The concept of culture can be stated as a set of attribute, which is directly related to group of people who activity involve into the working of the project. The few factors which may be included into the concept if the cultural different while working in a team may be the thinking, perspective, the national characters, nonverbal communication, behavior and social grouping. In recent times, it can be stated that due to the factor of society being so diverse has resulted in creating of numerous problem for the average project managers. It can be stated here that the issue, which is faced with the nonverbal and verbal communication within a project team, is not only caused by the factor of the reluctant of the project manager (PMs) to directly learn about the culture of each of the members (Martinelli and Milosevic 2016). Also is because of the “cultural arrogance” which is related to the people from the different parts of the world. These people form the different parts of the world find themselves in theses project activity countries and carry with them or load them with their own ideas, terminologies according to their country specific ideas. In an aspect the people do not want to respect, the factor and the working of the country they are working in and usually do not want to adopt the process of the country (Rezvani, et al.2016).

Challenges Faced in Multi-Cultural Project Teams

The main factor, which play a vital role in different phase, is the phase, which is related to the planning aspect. The planning phase can be considered one of the most important phase, which has to be dealt properly (Darawong, Igel and Badir 2016). In the context of multi-cultural team, the approach towards the project can be very much different. In this context, the project manager has a role. This issue can be faced in other phases as well such as the execution phase and other phases, which are included into the working of the project and delivering of the project. The project manager has to be highly trained in this context so that they can take control of the overall aspect. In most of the cases, it is seen that the project manager does not have sufficient experience, training, and thus leading the project to failure.

On the other hand, sometimes the aspect of the cultural difference can be beneficial due to the factor that it involves different level of working which is related to the project, which can somehow benefit the overall working of the project (Martinelli and Milosevic 2016). It can be stated that it all depends on the capability of the project manager how they control the different aspects which are related to the concept (Rezvani, et al.2016).

Some of the common traits, which are majorly shown by the people who comes from different country majorly, include the following points.

• Standing up to the project manager when the project manager comes with issue or question related to the activity of the project. This is due to the factor that they always think they are right and the project manager does not have a clear idea of the concept.
• Complaining when a small thing goes wrong.
• Continuously arguing with the project manager related to the working of the project.
• Standard of the project are sometimes not meet due to the degree of lack of interest in the internal working of the project.
• Interpretation when the project manager is involved into an activity (Darawong, Igel and Badir 2016).

The above points, which are mentioned, can be termed as point, which has to be taken care of by the project manager. It can be stated that it is big task in hand relating to the fulfillment of the desired goal of the project. The communication aspect can be considered as one of the vital factors, which are involved into the working of the project and guiding the project to the level of success. 

Taking into example a project, which is led by an Australian project manager, delivered in an Asian country like India and China. According to me, it can be stated that there would be cultural different and different expectation of the method involved into the project methodology and perception of the people working in the project. The project manager in these situation has an extremely vital role to play as it involves cultural different team members and delivery standards (Rezvani, et al.2016).

Planning Considerations for Multi-Cultural Projects

When a project is conducted in virtual cultural team, the standard of working which would be involved into the project would be very much different. It can be stated that the project manager has to be highly trained to deal with the situation. As one of the most important factor, which can be stated in this context, is that the project manager has to deliver a desired standard of the project with the different obligation placed (Darawong, Igel and Badir 2016).

In order to handle the project which is related to Riverina oils Plant extension I was basically in charge of the overall strategy of the project. According to me, there were few important points, which should be taken into consideration before starting of the project. The sector of the building up of the project team can be one of the most vital factors, which directly decide whether the project would be successful, or not. The location of the project were it would be implemented can be another important factor. The in project location selection there can be different point, which according to me were vital few of the points are stated below:

• The availability of raw material. The site should be in a location were the raw material would be easily available.
• Transportation factor is another point. This factor can be directly be related to the aspect of the overall budget of the project. If the transportation cost is minimized it would directly be helping the project to reach the desired level of success.
• Labor availability. The labor which be highly trained in this context and there should be involvement of the labor into the working of the project in a proper manner.
• Training can be another important point, which play a very vital role due to the factor that the project involves expertise level approach, which would be requiring high-level expert people. The training of the workers would be in the sector of how to deal with different issue factors, which are majorly faced in the project scenario.

I was also majorly part of the sector of the document, as it had to be done by someone who has some sort of knowledge into the working of the field and the project. there are different points which was taken into consideration by me in the sector of documentation for example the functional as well as nonfunctional requirement, the publication of the training manual, automatic system panel drawing, hardware installation interface drawing.

At this point of time after the documentation part, I had a team of member who was working with me and indulged himself or herself into the normal working of the project in order to proceed with project. According to me, the team mainly consisted of multi-cultural factor but we tried to give importance to all the statement and argument so that the factor of cultural difference would not work ideally into the concept of the project.

References

Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.

Darawong, C., Igel, B. and Badir, Y.F., 2016. The impact of communication on conflict between expatriate and local managers working in NPD projects of MNC subsidiaries: A local perspective. Journal of Asia-Pacific Business, 17(1), pp.81-99.

Gilson, L.L., Maynard, M.T., Jones Young, N.C., Vartiainen, M. and Hakonen, M., 2015. Virtual teams research: 10 years, 10 themes, and 10 opportunities. Journal of Management, 41(5), pp.1313-1337.

Kane, A.A. and Levina, N., 2017. ‘Am I Still One of Them?’: Bicultural Immigrant Managers Navigating Social Identity Threats When Spanning Global Boundaries. Journal of Management Studies, 54(4), pp.540-577.

Martinelli, R.J. and Milosevic, D.Z., 2016. Project management toolbox: tools and techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons.

Rezvani, A., Chang, A., Wiewiora, A., Ashkanasy, N.M., Jordan, P.J. and Zolin, R., 2016. Manager emotional intelligence and project success: The mediating role of job satisfaction and trust. International Journal of Project Management, 34(7), pp.1112-1122.

Sherstyuk, O., Olekh, ?. and Kolesnikova, K., 2016. The research on role differentiation as a method of forming the project team. ????????-??????????? ?????? ????????? ??????????, (2 (3)), pp.63-68.

Turner, R., 2016. Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.