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“Tzu-lu  said ‘ If the Lord of Wei entrusts the government to you, what will you do first?’ ‘Correct names, surely!’,  Confucius (551-479) BC.

Project Management is a global language. PMI and many Organizations have been promoting Project Management as an efficient way to close the Communication Gap.  August 2009 PMBOK Cafe held workshops in which Project Management was discussed in detail by more than 20 Project Management Professionals from diverse industries and more than 5 countries.  These people have extensive experience in conducting projects in Cultures out side of their Native Culture.

One of the overriding themes that has emerged is the reduction of the Culture Gap.  The Culture Gap are ideas that are difficult to express across cultures.  When you are working across cultures their is a greater Risk of Ambiguity.  Case in point our Current 2009 World bank President Robert Zoleick Stakeholder. As recently as 2006 during  High Level government meetings between China and USA were stalled on the word Stakeholder.  The finest translators in the world had issues with what does “Stakeholder” mean.

The practical methods to overcome this are email, messaging, voice, video and face to face travel.  Finding the correct people who have the critical; language, cultural and technical skills is the first step.  The Second step is Spending time to elaborate requirements is the best practice for management to mitigate this Risk of Ambiguity.

Project Management has been influenced by countless people and cultures.  Japanese business Philosophy of Kaizen 改善 or continuous improvement have been synonymous with Project Management. Which was in turn influenced by Henry Ford.  The Agile Manifesto is a child of this concept. I acknowledge that Agile concepts are a refinement to Project Management. The problem is Slang or Jargon that  is meant to be something that keeps groups together and keeps people out.

One of the issues with the  Agile Methodologies are the growing trend of labeling Project Management as “Traditional”.   Traditional Project Management is most likely rarely practiced anymore.  Traditional Project Management is something from the 60′s.  For example the Apollo Program that successfully in less than a decade from initiation, safely flew 2 men to the surface of the moon and returned them to Earth.  Fulfilling those requirements is a text book example of Traditional Project Management.  The Apollo Program and the Project Managers who crafted the tools by combining humanities best practices are the true owners of arguably mankind’s greatest achievement.

People can call it Modern or PM 2.0 or any numerous labels. The bottom line is call it what it is, Project Management. Veteran Project Managers such as  Glen Alleman of Herding Cats.  are unconvinced that there has been a radical revolution that warrants relabeling the vocabulary of Project Management.

Global Projects require us to communicate across cultures. We need to drop the posturing;  jargon and lingo and communicate in the clearest most easily translated  way possible. Believe me if you walk into a team members office in Shanghai and tell them we are not performing Project Management anymore we are  Scrumming, you will be viewed with some apprehension. Why, because Global Project Management has been practiced in Asia for thousands of years and the concepts in the Project Management Book of Knowledge are translated and being implemented globally. Having the PMBOK as a baseline is a first step in planning a Global Project.

Using the Project Management Book of Knowledge is an inclusive tool. With a Global Standard that has been translated into many of the languages around the world we can reduce the Cultural Ambiguity that is present on Global Projects. Working on a project in China, make sure that your Chinese team members have a copy, same in Japanese, same in Arabic, same in Spanish.  Teams of global volunteers have been working to Create a way to Manage Projects across cultures. Having a common set of names, that can be used across cultures is a giant step to governing your project and reducing risks of cultural misunderstandings.

PMBOK Cafe has a few spots open for the Global Risk workshop and the Marketing School of Project Management. The Three previous Cafes have had Participants from 6 different countries. The majority of the Participants have had extensive Experience working overseas.

Participants earn 12 PDU’s in Conjunction with PMI-Japan. PDU’s are Professional Development Units for the Global Standard Project Management Professional Certification or PMP. The PMP certification has become a common filter for Human Resource managers in accepting applications for Project Management positions around the world.

PMBOK Cafe is focused on creating an atmosphere for people to discuss their experience in the frame work of Scope Management. The Collect Requirements during Scope Management is the critical start to defining Project Success. The Workshop closely follows the PMBOK or Project Management Book of Knowledge Collect Requirements framework. Participants document their work, and contribute to the Global Knowledge of Project Management.

Learn about how Project Management Professionals perform world class project Management globally and earn Professional Development Units or PDU’s in Tokyo Japan.

Next Workshops are in Tokyo September 26th –27th and October 3rd –4th. There are only a few spots left. Register here to earn PDU’s in English in Tokyo Japan.

Global Project Management Culture has been well documented as a complex system.  The wicked problem of global transfer of knowledge in project based organizations has been documented in this excellent paper. Knowledge Transfer in Project-Based Organizations: An Organizational Culture Perspective. Mian M. Ajmal, Kaj U. Koskinen. Project Management Journal, Vol. 39, No. 1, 7-15 2008.  The Authors Ajmal and Kokinen describe that the biggest problem is not tech but culture.  They cite a study that says 80% of the problem of transferring knowledge is cultural.  There is a perception among people that holding information is more important than sharing.    Perhaps, the most famous example of this is Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy.  Newton did not publish his knowledge for 20 years, and it was only under the threat that Leibniz was in the midst of publishing his work that he finally did.

Why do we want to share knowledge?  That is an excellent question, and my only answer is the lessons learned from Newton his analogy is “I am only standing on the shoulders of Giants.”  Newton Recognizes that it is only by sharing that we can grow.  A giant for me is Alexander Budzier, his sharing of his notes for his doctoral thesis is an inspiration for me.  Please visit this giant here.  http://blog.budzier.com/ I would highly recommend bookmarking his blog in your google reader.

So back to the wicked problem we are facing.  Which is the merging of various project management cultures to facilitate the transfer and most importantly utilization of knowledge.  Ajmal and Kokinen cite the best way to increase our success is to Recognize that culture is a living Social System, We must assess this culture and recognize the function of our organizations culture. You can look at the xmind map and you can easily see the obstacles to knowledge culture.

Lets focus on the 12 characteristic obstacles.  Knowledge is messy, self organizing, seeks groups of people, travels on language, carelessness, shape of experiments, does not grow forever, social phenomena, organically, multi-modal, requires flow which to me means velocity.  So that is our wicked problem.  The requirements to solve the problem according to Ajamal and Koskinen are multidimensional means of facilitating input, effective ways of sorting useful from useless and developing an organizational culture.  The best solution would be for us to work together “generative knowledge creation occurs only when people are striving to accomplish something that matters deep to them.”  You need to commit to a shared vision of generating and sharing knowledge.  In my previous post we invoked the metaphor of The PMBOK Code the Path of Technology and the need for a baseline and how to munge the data, sort what is important and the request for us to work together. 

This post is to postulate that we can use the existing technology specifically friend feed as a way to collaborate as an open community.

This is not a call to all gravitate to one system, it is contrariwise.  It is a call to all pursue maximum complexity in terms of individual blogs, groups, networks and ways of communicating mind maps, images, videos.  It is the Multi-Dimensional requirement of facilitating input.  Create an open Project to use Yahoo Pipes in collaboration to open up the velocity while at the same time sorting what is useless.  But this will only happen if we Create Culture and Organize and it will only Happen if we Question the Norms.

Thank you for your time!