Working in a variety of locations or collaborating with multiple team members across borders can introduce some extra challenges to team and project management.

A recent article from Web Worker Daily entitled “Web Working in a Borderless World” points out some of the challenges international team members face:

• Working styles differ across cultures – I definitely agree with this one and the importance of having a clear communications structure is essential to make sure all team members understand their project/job responsibilities and have a well-defined mechanism to highlight problems before they become disasters. In working with people in Russia, the Middle East and South America, it is quite true that there are different work styles but the one consistent factor is that people seem to value being given the facts and knowing what people expect of them. Knowing how to best structure your multi-cultural communications is important as well.
• Geography becomes less of a factor in business – Depending on the product or project you are involved in, geography may become a competitive advantage. Suppose you are looking for first-hand knowledge about a city or region. It would definitely improve the value of your information to have someone who actually lives there as part of your team. I think the challenge becomes finding a common language to leverage any advantages that geography might offer. In an increasingly connected world (and employment market) developing language skills (or the skills to use tools for effective communication in multiple languages) is a very important aspect of taking advantage of geography.
• Timezones – These make doing business and communicating a new and exciting experience – especially with the near-real time options of email and VoIP telephony. I happen to favor the use of asynchronous communications tools such as 37Signals’ Campfire tool. Team members can log in according to their business “day” and then post updates and messages without trying to manage oddly-timed emails.

The opportunities for working globally as a “web worker” are expanding, despite the current financial crisis conditions. Being aware of the challenges mentioned in the Web Worker Daily’s article is a good first step to equipping yourself to handle them. I happen to disagree with the statement at the end of the article:

“As technology improves and as the global community gets more comfortable to international web work, these challenges will hopefully become non-existent.”

International business and cross-border communication has been around for quite a while and the challenges of cross-cultural communication, multi-cultural team management and communications logistics are not going to be diminished by new technological tools. However, it would be a welcome evolution to see improved cultural awareness and a willingness by international web workers to look for the benefits of cross-border cooperation rather than seeing only increased competition for jobs.

I think it is a good sign that more graduate business programs and undergraduate programs are including “international business” as part of their core curricula.

One the best tools I have come across for managing content development and project management is Basecamp (from 37signals.com).

I started using this application as a means to keep track of some volunteer projects and then realized how useful it could be for all of my projects. The ability to create milestones and to-do items as well as draft and share content through “writeboards” has become a standard tool for my work.

A particularly handy feature is the ability to create mailing lists for each project and in order to share updates with other remotely located team members or clients. This also makes it easy for people to see what is being done without having to login to the project website.

I came across the following statements made during a 1995 O’Reilly interview by Jason Fried, president of 37signals:

Basecamp democratizes project management and makes it a team effort. Basecamp lets everyone get involved in managing a project–the thinkers, the builders, the managers, and the client. Anyone who has access to the project can subscribe to the RSS feed and be updated about anything that is posted to that project.

Basecamp embraces the openness, accessibility, and universality of the Web. You don’t need fancy project management software (and worry about which version or platform you have). You don’t have to ask your clients to install some new software on their computers (and deal with updates, patches, and so on). You don’t need to worry about Mac or PC. All you need to use Basecamp is a web browser and an internet connection. Every firm and client has access to that and knows how to use that. That’s standard issue. Plus, most people have that setup at home, so you’re never far from your projects.

I can definitely agree that the communication tools for project management are often too complex and hard to use. Status reports with graphs and Gantt charts look great and tell a compelling story. . .to other project managers. What is really essential is being able to keep clients updated and do it as simply and clearly as possible.

Basecamp and the related Writeboard and Campfire applications make it possible and easy for a virtual team or a remotely located freelancer to stay in touch and provide a professional communications tool for that is useful to both the team and their clients.

While thinking about this post I was doing a bit of research via Bloglines and Technorati but I wasn’t able to find any relevant posts to freelancers working on the international market. I tried a variety of keywords such as “international,” “freelancer,” “freelance consultant +international,” and “Foreign Service freelance” and some other related iterations. However, none of them seemed to yield any relevant results. (ASIDE: I did manage to find some experts in construction and management consulting who happen to have the word “international” in their firms’ names.)

The point, I suppose, is that there doesn’t appear to be a well-indexed list of freelancers who are working in an international setting for content development and web design/development. In some ways I suppose this is due to the relative difficulty of moving overseas without some sort of job offer or incentive. Visas are rather tricky to obtain without demonstrating that you will have gainful employment in a foreign country.

Another option is that the people who are living an international lifestyle and might be inclined to become freelancers are not very well-represented on the internet.

After a brief search on Elance.com, Freelancewriting.com, JournalismJobs.com, and AssociatedContent.com there was a small selection of jobs emphasizing international themes. The majority seemed to talk about jobs writing for the Spanish-speaking market. Also, there were some jobs seeking writers with skills for translation and web content development for languages such as German, French, Russian and even Arabic. Based upon this very preliminary research, it seems that there is a market for writers and content managers with international living experience and language skills. This doesn’t even begin to look at what the market might be for people with international development experience. (This is a subject worthy of a separate blog post since there are numerous websites on this topic.)

The bottom line is that while there may be people out there working as international freelance consultants or content developers they don’t seem to have their own marketing efforts in place. As I mentioned in the past, it seems odd that there might be writers out there who don’t take the time to set up and maintain their own websites. I also think it is doubly important for international freelancers to have more aggressive self-promotion tools. The reason for this is that they might have uniquely valuable knowledge to specific international markets and they, quite possibly, will be traveling more frequently than U.S.-based freelancers.

Some useful ideas to consider if you are thinking about international freelance consulting:

• Be sure to have a language specialization. Speak, read and write the local language. It wouldn’t hurt to learn about the local culture as well.
• Learn what is valuable to companies or individuals who might be looking for your services. How can you as a locally-based freelancer help a company that does business internationally? Is it your skills? Is it your experience? Can you offer a cost savings since you live in the international location that the company is interested in?
• Set up some sort of internet presence to advertise your availability – even if you are looking for part-time work. Because if no one knows you are out there, how can they find you? Think about using an inexpensive, but professional, approach such as a hosted blog or your own domain with a few professionally designed pages that will be readily visible to search engines.
• Network in the real world and online to share experiences and build friendships. If you are living an international lifestyle and expect to be relocating overseas you can never have too many friends.

Some organizations, especially those in international development, are tasked with achieving results, measuring the extent of their achievement and then, on top of that, finding a way to tell people about the good job they did.

Typically, the monitoring and evaluation portion of a project (or projects) emphasizes quanitifiable data (e.g., number of people who received humanitarian relief packages or, perhaps, hours of practical training provided). These data are usually put into a centralized spreadsheet or database for recall at a moment’s notice.

While it is somewhat dry and lifeless on its own, statistical data is  important for development work. Lawmakers and special interest groups want to know that tax monies are funding something positive and valuable through the work of a contract or grant provided from the government. Often, the statistical data goes a long way in securing additional funding to continue a program.

The problem with simply presenting fact and figures is the detachment from ”real people.” It sounds far more compelling to say, for example:

“Ms. N was able to see the face of her newborn daughter thanks to the maternal health care services of Project XYZ”

instead of,

“Local residents of Town W (population XXXXX) received medical support and health care development to realize decreased infant mortality rates (reduced by 15%) and improved quality in neonatal care.”

In short, facts and hard data should be used to back up and clarify the impact of helping and supporting the people who are benefitting from international development. Communicating the life-changing impact of hard work and international cooperation should alwaysbe presented with a human face rather than a fancy plastic binder cover filled with print-outs.

My recent departure from Bolivia meant that I had to hand off a project that had become a six-month investment of time and effort. (The project happens to be the video PR tool that I had mentioned in an earlier posting.) This was a bit challenging as I was very interested in seeing how the project turned out and wanted to know if the corrective actions I had taken had been the right decisions. Prior to leaving the project in the hands of a capable colleague I did what I could to make the transition as painless as possible by updating my files and writing a detailed “hand off” memo.

The memo was a bit lengthy (6 pages) and was written in an action-oriented style to help the new project manager make time sensitive decisions. I made a point to write about the highest risk factors first so that these would not become problems. Also, I made sure to clearly state the scheduled deadlines and key milestone events within the next 30 days of the project. Once I had drafted the memo and given it to my colleague to read, I followed up with a meeting to review the project file and answer any questions about the personalities of stakeholders and contractors that were involved in the upcoming project stages. I am confident that the briefing was effective because in the following days my colleague mentioned that he had woken up early to dwell on the various project activities and how to deal with some of the risks I had mentioned in my memo.

While the management of the project is now out of my hands I am following up with the new project manager to ask him for feedback on the project’s progress and any constructive criticism he might have on my project management decisions. While it might be a bit humbling I am hoping for some sincere feedback so I can learn from my (hopefully few) mistakes. I also want to try and develop some ‘lessons learned’ with regards to working with local contractors and dealing with any cross-cultural communications issues in project management.

Lessons learned:

• Keep detailed project files – I found that the job of writing a “hand off” memo became infinitely easier when I had a well-organized project file to refer to. A key component of this file is a reverse-chronological email section that provides a reliable record of online conversations with the contractor and relevant stakeholders.
• Follow up with a meeting to expain the memo – The memo, with its somewhat overwhelming level of detail, was useful but became a more effective project management tool when accompanied by a 30 minute discussion between the departing project manager and the incoming manager. The meeting also provided a venue to discuss the personalities, challenges and overall expectations related to the project and its deliverables. Some information simply would not have been appropriate to include in the memo since it was either subjective (meaning I had my own interpretation that influenced my style of project management) or could have been misunderstood by someone reading the information out of context.
• Identify risks and key action items – Since any project can be overwhelming for a new project manager who is taking over a ‘work in progress’ I think it is essential to identify the risks and any short-term action items that need handled before they threaten the success of the project. As part of my handover of this project I made it a point to the put the risks and action items at the top of my memo.

While my project to create a successful online collaboration tool continues, I am also embroiled in developing a video CD product. The project has developed into quite a project management challenge since we are working in a dynamic political environment (Bolivia) and trying to create a product that is historically focused and avoids offending, in a political sense, anyone in the present.
One of the more interesting challenges in hiring a local contractor to produce something like this video CD is helping them to develop the professional capacity to work in a U.S.-style of project management. So far I have worked to help on the creative side by sitting with the filmmaker for the project and helping him edit his documentary footage. I feel comfortable saying that I now have a working knowledge of the primary functions of Adobe Premier Pro (video editing software).
Another “learning experience” has been the development of the user interface and the content for an interactive information tool. Basically, the tool allows a reader to review the activities and successes of international development work in Bolivia over the past 20 years. The downside is that it seems the local contractor has never really developed such a tool, despite their fairly good technical experience. As a result, I am now in the process of reviewing the thing from a usability perspective (using a lot of the recommendations from Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think”) as well as developing a style sheet that the contractor can use when he goes back and corrects the numerous errors that have crept into the first draft.
Lessons learned:

• When working with a new contractor, expectations need to be very clear and put in writing
• Developing a PR tool requires a clear vision of the audiences and the key messages that they are supposed to receive. This means that the project manager must be closely involved in the storyboard production so that there is less re-working later.
• Make sure that sufficient review cycles are built into the project schedule from the very beginning. This becomes even more important when the number of senior stakeholders increases.

Final thought
Despite the best efforts of the project designers, it seems that schedule slip is sometimes inevitable. I think the best way to avoid too much slippage (or prevent it entirely) is to develop as detailed a task list as possible from the very beginning of the project.
Another potentially useful practice is to avoid changing stakeholders and project sponsors after the initiation of the project’s work. This has happened to a limited degree during this project and it required some on-on-one meetings to finesse the perceptions of the new stakeholders so that they were in sync with the original scope of the work.