Leading a multi-country, international project... Part 1

Earlier this year I was approached about an amazing opportunity to lead a International, Multi-country Project. The project's main task is to implement Oracle ERP for an organization in South America - rolling it our to 5 countries of operations, starting with two main operations in Brazil and Chile.

If you've heard of ERP systems and this type of project, you already know some of the things I am and will continue to face like the challenges involved in clearly defining business requirements, setting realistic implementation expectations and involving employees and key users accordingly throughout the project lifecycle.

If you haven't hear much about ERP systems and this type of project, take a moment to review the following links - they will give you a quick glimpse into this world - there is soooo much more out there, so don't stop here... research on your own as well!

• What is ERP?: http://tinyurl.com/8yr9k
• Implementing an ERP system: http://tinyurl.com/7ea3cvt
• Lessons Learned from Failed ERP Implementations: http://tinyurl.com/n94d793

In addition to the typical Project Management and ERP Implementation challenges, my current project also has an extra layer of complexity related to collaboration and communication amongst multiple countries, languages and cultures... and that is what I believe will be the biggest and most exciting challenge to overcome during this assignment.

So I thought I journal some of my encounters and experiences here in this blog.

Part 1 - Effective Communication

I've been working on this project since May, and much like any other project, Effective Communication is one of the key to continued success.

What does effective communication mean? Our beloved Wikipedia defines Effective Communication as follows: Effective communication occurs when a desired effect is the result of intentional or unintentional information sharing, which is interpreted between multiple entities and acted on in a desired way. In lamest terms: the results achieved are as expected and communicated.

It seems easy... but it is not. There are a lot of internal and external factors that could cause a communication breakdown, and prevent effective communication; including but not limited to language barriers, translation gaps, cultural preconceptions, educational background, role context, personal agendas, individual motivations, terminology gaps, nonverbal cues and others.

With all of the potential for miscommunication, being intentional and careful about what and how you communicate is absolutely necessary for managing/leading a project.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not perfect at communication - I have made and I'm sure will make future mistakes... The point however is that you must be aware of the importance of Effective Communication, and prepare yourself with tools, tactics and strategies to ensure you able to effectively communicate with your team and all involved.

The following are some (not all) of the simple tactics I've used in the past and will most likely continue to use during this project:

- Meeting Agendas & Minutes - seems silly, and for the note taker it may seem a pain in the you know where. However meeting agendas and minutes are easy communication mechanisms that will greatly help you in setting expectations upfront and alignment commitment and accountability afterwards.

The agenda needs to be simple and to the point - it should include:

• a Purpose statement (The Why - the reason for having such meeting). This will help invitees understand why the meeting is taking place, and also begin to understand why they have been invited.
• the Topics list - a list with all the topics that are to be discussed. I strongly recommend you describe the action expected for each topic - for example, you may have a topic that is informational (simply an update, or data sharing), you may also have a topic that is a Open Decision, not only will you discuss the topic but a decision has to be made at the end. For open decisions topics I recommend you list the question that needs answered - for example: Define frequency of Steering Committee meetings - Options: 1) Weekly, 2) Biweekly or 3) Monthly.
• the Expected Outcome - I personally like to explicitly call out the expected outcome of the meeting as a separate item in the agenda, in addition to the purpose statement. The purpose statement defines why the meeting is happening, and the expected outcome identifies an action that must occur as a result of the meeting. For example: You could have a meeting with the purpose of reviewing and approving a Requirements Document; the expected outcome of that meeting would be a final Approved Requirements Document which would imply all changes identified during the meeting should be made there and then, rather than taking updates offline.

The minutes should be simple as well. I recommend you leverage a consistent template throughout your project so that people get familiarized with the format and are able to easily consume the information. My minutes template include:

• Meeting organizer's name
• Meeting Note taker (always assign one at the start of the meeting!!!)
• Date, Time and Location of the meeting
• Invitees
• Attendees (not everybody will attend all of your meetings... that's just reality!)
• Discussion Points (These should match your Topics List, but could include more or less. If less topics were discussed you should have a action item or note that identifies the plan for covering the remaining topics). I sometimes will include Decisions and Conclusions in this section - I have in the past broken those into its own sections - the point is that you should capture any decision made during the meeting and any conclusion reached.
• Action Items - don't forget to capture the action items identified throughout the meeting. Make sure to have, as much as possible, one single owner for each action items, and an associated due date. As the meeting facilitator, you must follow up on the action items and hold people accountable for them.

- Verbal Communication Strategies - One of the things that have helped me in the best in ensuring effective communication has been the repeat it as I understand it approach. When in a meeting or conversation, where a point is being made by someone, or a question or answer is being given, where my understanding and agreement is expected, before I agree or consent, I repeat what I heard as I understood it to the person so that he/she has the opportunity to hear how I received the message. This approach helps with sorting through ambiguity and individual linguistic abilities.

• I recall a recent meeting that I attended in Brazil where we were meeting with a vendor to discuss a partnership and during an entire hour I was listening to this guy talk about their Support Team and how they operated. The meeting was fully in Portuguese (which is my native language) but he often used English terms (techy jargon) to explain certain methods and practices they were utilizing, and throughout that entire hour I was certain that he was stating that they leveraged Agile... turned out that what he was saying was ITIL. Since he is Brazilian and was speaking Portuguese, when he said ITIL I heard Agile - this miscommunication came about as a result of a mix of what my brain and ears are trained to hear, my background and his accent. We sorted it out and his presentation made a lot more sense after that... But this is a common situation where repeat it as I understand it can help.

- Written Communication Strategies - If you've worked with me, you know how much I hate emails... My beloved Concierge team will vouch for that... But that is, unfortunately a necessary evil. The key is knowing how to use it. In my current project, I will need to leverage email frequently since I will need to maintain constant communication with multiple locations, in different languages and timezones. So, for all my emails, I adhere to the following guiding principles:

• Always design your message!!!
• Select the correct audience and don't copy everyone and their cousins on every email... Escalation should be treated with respect - if you copy too many people, or send an email to too many recipients, you may not ever get a response, as it may be unclear who the email was intended to.
• Don't write a "quick" email that needs to be well-thought out.
• Ask yourself, is email the best mechanism for this topic. There are certain topics that should not be discussed via email. I used to get really mad at my team when I saw 10-20-50 emails back and forth, where people were trying to troubleshoot a system problems. This type of collaboration is better accomplished via a chat-interface like sametime, google-hangouts, lync, etc.
• If your topic is time-sensitive, email is probably not the best mechanism. For time-sensitive topics, I always side with a phone call. I may send an email with details, or background on the topic for future review and to leverage during the phone conversation, but never an email alone.
• Structure your email effectively - people receive hundreds of email a day, so your email will be another one in the list. According to a recent survey by Harris Interactive, majority of people can only digest about 50 emails a day. As the numbers go above this threshold their attention spam and responsiveness declines. So, your email may only get about half of the attention, so your intuit, your message's goal should be the first thing people read. State it clearly and upfront so that the reader knows what is expected of them as soon as they glance at it. If you need help, state it; if you need a decision to be made, state it. The background information can come below it, as it is supporting info but not the ultimate goal.
• Oh, and don't forget to get up and walk over to someone's desk when possible... sometimes that is the best communication strategy for certain topics. Of course always being respectful of their time.

As I continue on this journey, I will continue to share with you some of my experiences and lessons learned. I'd love to hear your comments, and learn from you as well... so feel free to leave me a note....

Till next time...