Winning Project Team Support:
Establishing Trusting Relationships Across Borders
By Sue Freedman and Lothar Katz
Alan, an American project manager, assumed leadership of a project that included an Indian team with responsibility for a vital project component. Eager to start right with his new project members, Alan set up an individual conference call with each of the Indian team members. He always made such calls when new members joined his team, including those born in India, and found the conversations informative, interesting, and conducive to team cohesion. To his surprise, Alan’s calls with his Indian team members, who spoke excellent English, were awkward and frustrating. The team members seemed to be hiding something, did not answer any direct questions, and acted as if they could not wait to get off the phone. Alan hung up frustrated and a bit insulted. After all, he had taken time out of his busy schedule to talk with each one of them, and they acted as if they did not want to be bothered.
Juri, a project manager in Finland, received an email from Jay, a project manager employed in the American branch of their Finnish-owned company. The email delineated critical issues preventing the installation of a product for Jay’s U.S.-based customer. When Juri didn’t respond within 24 hours, he received another email, followed the next day by a phone call. Juri, away at a training seminar, missed all of these communications. When he returned, he emailed Jay that he would check on the issues and get back to him ASAP. The next day Jay called, asking for an update and explaining that they were losing money and customers because of the delays. Juri listened but found his American colleague quite rude. After three more calls from Jay, in which he became increasingly forceful, Juri complained to his management, who called his counterpart in the American branch, another Finn. They came up with a solution: Jay was no longer supposed to call the Finnish office directly. Jay ultimately left the company to work for an American one.
About the Authors:
 
Sue Freedman, PhD
Sue Freedman, Ph.D. is a consultant and teacher specializing in management, leadership, and change management strategies for projects and project based organizations. She has worked with fortune 500 and other companies in the areas of international project management, international leadership, complex collaboration, team effectiveness, and large systems change. Recent public presentations include: Management Across Borders” (Project Management Institute, Houston, 2007), “Initiating and Planning International Projects” (PMI SIG, 2006), and “Executing International Projects” (PMI SIG, 2006). For the past five years, Sue has taught project and organizational leadership at the University of Texas at Dallas for the Executive Education Project Management MBA Program. She is co-author of Beyond Teams: Building the Collaboration Organization (Jossey-Bass, 2003) and the “Managing Virtual Teams that Cross Borders” chapter of The Handbook on Virtual Teams (Jossey Bass, 2008). Sue spent 12 years with Texas Instruments, serving as Manager of Organizational Effectiveness at the Division and Corporate level and 2 years as Vice-President of Organizational Development and Human Resources of a real estate investment trust. Together with her Partner, Lothar Katz, she co-developed and frequently co-instructs a series of workshops on “Managing Projects Across Borders.” She can be contacted at sf@knowledgeworkglobal.com
Lothar Katz
Lothar Katz is a management advisor in the field of international business. He has helped many organizations grow their global competence and maximize their international business success. During his 16 years with Texas Instruments, a Fortune 500 company, Mr. Katz gained extensive negotiation, business leadership, and project management experience. As a Vice President and General Manager, he successfully led international organizations across four continents and regularly interacted with employees, customers, outsourcing partners, and third parties in numerous countries. Mr. Katz is the author of the book “Negotiating International Business – The Negotiator’s Reference Guide to 50 Countries Around the World”, a faculty member of the Project Management Program at the University of Texas at Dallas’ School of Management, and a Business Leadership Center instructor at the Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business. In addition to his work with several Fortune 500 companies and other clients, Mr. Katz is a frequent speaker at nationwide conferences and organizational meetings. Recent public lectures included “Negotiating International Business” (Council for Supply Chain Mgmt Professionals, Dallas, 2007), “Negotiating and Innovating a Partnership in China” (“Innovation with Partners in China” Conference, San Diego, 2007), “Project Management Across Borders” (PMI, Houston, 2007), “Initiating and Planning International Projects” (PMI SIG, 2006), “Executing International Projects” (PMI SIG, 2006), “The Hidden Cost of Offshore Outsourcing” (Financial Executives Initiative, Dallas, 2006), “Selection Criteria for Global Projects” (Management Roundtable, 2006), “Co-Developing Products in Asia” (MRT, 2005, 2006, and 2007), and “Doing Business in China” (“Building and Enforcing IP Value in China” Conference, San Francisco/New York, 2005, 2006, and 2007). Together with his partner Dr. Sue Freedman, he co-developed and frequently co-instructs a series of workshops on “Managing Projects Across Borders.” Lothar can be contacted at lk@leadershipcrossroads.com.
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How PM Companies and Consultancies Can Reduce Cash Float
By Curt Finch , Journyx CEO
If you're running a small, growing business, chances are you’re broke all the time.
The cash float problem that occurs during business growth is a mathematical rational reality. You have a growing profitable company, which is great news! Except that you’re out of cash and just barely avoiding bankruptcy. How is this possible?
What is Cash Float?
If you’re in a position where you must pay to create something before you sell it and your customer pays you 45 days later, then you have 45 days where you have spent money that you aren’t getting back. This is called “cash float.” If your business is steady, your float is equal to two or three months of income. For example, if your company makes $120,000 each year ($10,000 per month), the cash float is probably $20,000 to $30,000.
When success comes your way and sales increase from $240,000 to $1.2 million per year, your float also increases from $40,000+ to $200,000+, and that money has to come from somewhere. Part of it can come from profit, but unless your profits are extremely high, they are probably insufficient to enable such growth.
People will tell you that this is a "nice problem to have" – not if it causes you to go bankrupt. So here are 4 ways to deal with this cash float problem.
About the Author:
Curt Finch
Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx (http://pr.journyx.com), a provider of Web-based software located in Austin, Texas, that tracks time and project accounting solutions to guide customers to per-person, per-project profitability. Journyx, which is based in Austin, Texas, USA, has thousands of customers worldwide and is the first and only company to establish Per Person/Per Project Profitability (P5), a proprietary process that enables customers to gather and analyze information to discover profit opportunities. In 1997, Curt created the world’s first Internet-based timesheet application - the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt is an avid speaker and author, and recently published “All Your Money Won’t Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource”.
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The Seven Deadly Project Sins: Part 6 –
Over-allocation of Resources
By Tim Bergmann, PMP, ABCP
This article is sixth in a series about the Seven Deadly Project Sins.
In this narrative, I will continue to focus on some of the “soft-elements” of the project, some temptations that the project manager needs to be on the lookout for in order to foster success on the project.
The Seven Deadly Project Sins as I have defined them are:
The sixth Deadly Project Sin – Over-Allocation of Resources can definitely make accomplishing the project more difficult.
How does Over-Allocation happen?
Project Managers are often encouraged to try and meet unreasonable expectations for projects. Scope is often extended while schedules and budget are restricted. Project managers many times try to meet these constrained schedules by pushing their existing resources to their limits.
While it is an acceptable trait to get the most from people, and it is acceptable to push the project team in times of crisis, it should be unacceptable to routinely over-allocate resources based on perceived need, rather than real need.
About the Author:
Tim Bergmann
Mr. Timothy S. Bergmann, PMP, ABCP is a highly qualified project manager with three decades of experience managing a wide variety of information technology projects. Mr. Bergmann's experience includes project management, operations management, infrastructure planning and implementation, business continuity planning, customer service and business development. In 2006 he co-authored the best selling “CISA Study Guide” marketed by Sybex. Mr. Bergmann currently manages training development and delivery as Director of Education for True Solutions, Inc. in Dallas, Texas. He can be contacted at tim.bergmann@true-solution.com.
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How to Make Your Team Dysfunctional
By Avneet Mathur, PMP
Webster's dictionary defines a team as a number of persons associated together in work or activity. But, a team is more than a collection of people. It is a process of give and take. Team building is the process of creating a collaborative enterprise that can perform or effect change. Knowing the difference between a group, a good team and a bad team is essential when building better collective performance, especially as team building with groups can be counterproductive.
The Sixteen Teamwork Complexes, below, are derived from the rigid overuse or underuse of MTR-I (Management Team Role-Indicator), which in turn are derived from Carl Jung's theory of psychological types. The MTR-i is particularly useful because of its linking of psychological type to team role and facilitating the exploration of potential differences between an individual's personality preferences and work persona. Teams become dysfunctional when there is a rigid underuse or overuse of the team role.
Rigid underuse occurs when a team is unable to use a team role, even when it is fitting to do so. On the other hand rigid overuse occurs when the team persists in using a role, even when it is not appropriate to do so. A team becomes dysfunctional when there is a rigid underuse or a rigid overuse of a role. This leads to complications as shown. The table below shows the team roles based on the Jungian function attitude identified by the MTR-I, and reflects the rigid underuse and overuse of them within a team.
About the Author:
 
Avneet Mathur
Avneet Mathur works for Zeratec, Inc. which provides utility computing solutions to individuals and companies, as their Chief Technology Officer managing various projects for the organization. He is a Certified Project Management Professional, as awarded by the Project Management Institute. Avneet holds an MBA in General Business Administration, with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship and Finance, with an additional Master's Degree in Computer Science and Networking from University of Missouri, Kansas City. He also has a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from the Aurangabad University, India. He can be contacted at Avneet_mathur@hotmail.com.
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