Whether you are managing an on site project or an offshore one, getting the best out of your team takes effort, planning and tact. More so with offshore projects because of the ‘X’ factor; so much is unknown to you when you step out of your own circle. The offshore team can be based anywhere in the world but it is usually the developing countries that are the most tempting. The biggest motivation behind offshore projects is financial, therefore strong. The challenge is to convert this motivation into a successfully supervised project and we have 25 rock solid tips just to achieve that;

1. The most basic thing you can do while managing an overseas project is to understand the culture of your offshore team. There are words and actions acceptable in your culture that may be extremely offensive to your workers. Similar is the sense of humor of different cultures; what is funny to you may be offensive to them and there is not worse way to lose respect in another’s eyes than to appear as if you are laughing at him. Your job as the PM is to learn about the differences in culture, appreciate them and make sure you deal with your offshore team in a manner that does not offend them.
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Andrew Filev is the author of the Project Management 2.0 blog and CEO of Wrike. He has a very interesting view on Project Management, which he describes as Project Management 2.0. He also created an amazing PM Tool that supports his notion of Project Management 2.0: Wrike.

I had a great interview with him, which I will share with you in three parts over the next few weeks. This is part one in which he explains the concept of emerging structures and how this relates to Project Management.

Emerging Structure

Bas: “There are two terms you use when talking about Project Management 2.0 and Wrike: collective intelligence and emerging structure. With “collective intelligence” you make use of your entire organization. But could you clarify “emerging structure”?”

Andrew: “Sure. Let’s say there is a group of people working on something. You may have a top-down approach, when the manager or the head of the group implies structure. In the project management case, it’s most likely a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The project manager spends some time at the beginning of the project and designs a WBS that will stay throughout the project. It will probably be extended a little bit, made more detailed, but there is little chance that the WBS will be changed dramatically. Because that is very hard to do, it would require the project manager to re-plan everything himself, and that’s a lot of hassle.

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