Global Project Management

This page provides a quick introduction to Global Projects and refers to a framework for Global Project Managment.

Typically the project team is from the same organization and all located in same location. For larger projects, the team could consist of members of other organizations also. Yet another dimension is about the location. The team may be located in one place (or) may spread out across locations. Some of these locations can be across countries/continents. These can lead to multiple timezones in which team members are spread out, the team members maybe from multiple cultures speaking multiple languages.

Projects executed across countries with team members from multiple organizations from different timezones, cultures and speaking different languages are referred to as Global Projects. The following radar chart is used in Binder (2016) to represent the various dimensions of Global projects and the degree to which a particular project is global can be assessed using the same.

Source: Binder (2016)

A few sample project scenarios depicted using the above radar chart by Binder are provided below for reference:

Source: Binder (2016)

Source: Binder (2016)

Global Programs

Extending these dimensions to Programs which are a collection of projects, Binder (2016) provides a few categories of Global Programs as below.

Source: Binder (2016)

A Global Project Manager needs to deal with the following aspects:

  1. Global Team Management
  2. Communication Across Borders
  3. Adapting the organization culture to be a global organization
  4. Collaborative Tools

Advantages of Global Projects

Source: Binder (2016)

“Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.” (Source: Wikipedia). Global projects can help reduce this and thereby reduce the impact on innovation is what is highlighted in one of the points above.

Challenges of Global Projects

Source: Binder (2016)

Global Project Management Framework (Copyright Jean Binder 2007)

Source: Binder (2016)

References

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