On Projects*

Better to let them do it imperfectly than to do it perfectly yourself, for it is their country, their way, and your time is short. – T.E. Lawrence. 

Your in a foreign country, you don’t speak the local language, there is little local infrastructure, you’ve been given a tight deadline and your expected to deliver in a deteriorating security environment – welcome to Project Management in a Post-conflict Environment. 

I’ve been around the traps and picked up a few handy lessons learnt for Project Managers operating on foreign soil in a culturally diverse, high security environment.

1. Evaluate your personal reasons for doing this particular project

Nothing forces to reevaluate your person motivations for working on a project when incoming rockets wake you up in the middle of the night.  Is it the money? Is it the adrenaline rush? Is it your professionalism of delivering ‘no matter what’? Is it your drive to help the local people and make the world a better place? or were you spanked as a child?  Have a good hard look in the mirror and ensure you have what it takes to do the job properly.  If you’re doing it for money or adrenaline or adventure you’re probably there for the wrong reasons.

2. Learn the local ways

Project management in a culturally diverse environment is a skill you learn and generally the hard way.  One group of people consider it rude to look you in the eyes another consider it impolite not to.  Another group will want to get straight to the point whereas another would prefer 3 or 4 meetings of “getting to know you” small talk before getting down to business.  Learn to work with the local customs, you may not agree with it but applying western approaches in non-western environments will not get you very far.

3. Buy local

In a post-conflict environment the local population and economy is generally in tatters however where you can use the local economy rather than ship in international goods.  As long as the quality is adequate, the collective action of projects like yours will help spur the recovery of the local economy and help secure your operating environment for the long term. 

Too many times I’ve seen foreign governments and international companies implement procurement policies that require goods to be procurement from their country of origin or from international sources. Besides being generally more expensive, the local population does not benefit from the flow of funds.   This has a two fold impact – it slows recovery efforts and increases instability – leading to longer (and more expensive) recovery period. 

This is obviously not the silver bullet for nation building however if you’re not-for-profit project this means a less safe operating environment and if your for-profit this translates into to a higher risk environment for your investment.

More lessons learnt from project management in post-conflict environments next week.