Managing Cultural Diversity in Projects
Project management tools arose out of mono-cultural environments. Experienced international project managers know that reality works out differently when multiple cultures are involved. Some of the many challenges in managing multicultural projects cited by experienced project managers are:
- Communicating so that one is understood
- Knowing when you have commitment
- Dealing with time, deadlines and accountability
- Understanding hidden agendas and priorities
- Managing the interface between project and line organisation
This course gives you the competence to develop your multicultural project.
- To recognise how culture affects the different project phases and the application of project management tools
- To avoid unconscious cultural misunderstanding and deal with conflict when it arises
- To take advantage of intercultural synergies
The course advances your competence in seven areas for managing the complexity of multicultural projects:
- Understanding how and why multicultural projects are different.
- Applying tools for analysing and assessing the impact of culture.
- Building an effective multicultural team.
- Successful ways of dealing with multicultural conflict.
- Building appropriate project structures which recognise and build on diversity.
- Handling tricky issues of virtual communication.
- Implementing improved practices for multicultural projects.
The programmeme alternates between plenary sessions with trainer input and group work on selected real-life case projects. Projects may deal for example with product research and development, IT development, international construction, establishment of foreign subsidiaries or creation of international strategic sourcing partnerships.
Participants have found that the principles and tools mastered have even helped them draw the best out of projects which take place entirely in one country, but which deal with the diversity represented by project participants coming from different departments or regions.
