Virtual Team Dynamics - The Ulfire Podcast

I am really happy to announce that from November this year Ulfire will be delivering the Responding to Organisational Complexity course developed by ICCPM on their behalf in Western Australia and eventually also in the Northern Territory. The course is a unique offering that addresses a gap in knowledge between undergraduate and post graduate training around complexity. The first Perth course starts on 6th November 2017. The post Responding to Organisational Complexity Training Course appeared first on ULFIRE.

This post is for a podcast interview with Deb Hein the CEO of the International Centre of Complex Project Management (ICCPM) where we discuss the current state of complexity in projects. The post Interview with Deb Hein of ICCPM appeared first on ULFIRE.

Complex projects seem to be appearing everywhere, or at least everyone seems to think they are. This is an introductory article to the role virtual teams play in complex projects, it sets out some of the challenges in differentiating between truly complex project and those that are really just large or at best complicated. This is the first of a series of articles that will dig into more of the detail of where virtual teams contribute to the complexity of many modern projects and help to establish a better understanding of where complexity sits in the world of modern project management. The post Introduction to the use of Virtual Teams in Complex Projects appeared first on ULFIRE.

Projects are becoming increasingly complicated, they have more stakeholders, they are bigger and they are generally getting harder to complete. Lost in all the growth and complication is the need to address the increasing communications complications, as the teams and challenges have grown so has the need to establish an understanding of their communications needs. This article discusses some of the challenges and suggests a need for the leaders of the projects to become more inclusive and open in the tools and techniques they use and make available to their teams. The post Project Communications Complications appeared first on ULFIRE.

Showing gratitude to your staff and colleagues through a simple, quick email reply with a thanks or a thank you can mean the difference between a grateful and engaged workforce and one that feels they are only there to serve your every need. Taking a few second to acknowledge someone's work is a quick, simple and meaningful way to help to keep your team motivated. The post The Power Of Thank You and Showing Gratitude appeared first on ULFIRE.

Understanding why your project is adopting an international execution strategy is an important step in planning your project. There are a number of reasons modern project may or may not go international, they will all have a large influence on the way the project is run and its potential risk profile. This article considers five of the major reasons that will influence the decision. The post The Good and Bad of International Project Teams appeared first on ULFIRE.

Technology and costs are rapidly changing the way future projects will be approached. Those running these new projects will need new skills and techniques to be successful. It will no longer be a case of being able to simply being able to deliver technical work, team members will need to be exceptional communicators and understand how to work in increasingly complex and harder to predict environments. The post Engineering Project Skills For The Future appeared first on ULFIRE.

Training and developing personnel to take on the key roles of leading international interfaces in virtual team projects is an ongoing task for most businesses who operate in the space. This article considers some of the reasons the development of personnel for these roles is important. The post Developing International Project Communicators appeared first on ULFIRE.

All too often organisations send personnel off on international project assignments with little to no support. They receive a visa, a plane ticket and a contract and that's about it, the organisation then trusts to luck and the employee's skill that the secondment and the project associated with it will be a success. It really does not have to be that way though, a little bit of training, some mentoring and coaching and general support than the outcomes can be so much more predictable. This article is for those on the receiving end of these poorly planned placements, tips to survive when thrown in at the deep end on an international project. The post Surviving at the Deep End on International Projects appeared first on ULFIRE.

Securing personnel for international or intercultural assignments and postings can be a difficult task. It is generally easier to find candidates with the right technical skills than the right cultural and motivational ones, yet, getting the motivational balance wrong can lead to major issues as the deployment progresses. This article looks at some of the issues associated with finding those right personnel for your needs. The post Motivations To Succeed In International Teams Communication appeared first on ULFIRE.

Finding real, genuine leadership role models in the crowded and highly distorted modern world is a major challenge for aspiring leaders. All too often they are left choosing between a media creation on a TV show or in a movie, a politician or a sporting personality, when the people they really need to be emulating are the business leaders, business leaders who are unable to show their true colours because of corporate spin and media control. The post Who Are Our Leadership Role Models appeared first on ULFIRE.

Building a successful international project team relationship requires a broad span of abilities, these range from whatever the technical needs of the role are to many interpersonal and cross cultural abilities. This article discusses some of the ways an organisation can access and utilise many of these skills, skills that can be either internally or externally sourced. The post Understanding Your International Project Partners appeared first on ULFIRE.

Selecting personnel for an expat assignment is a critical activity that can have major impacts on the overall outcome of a project. Pick and send the right people and you will have a solid and productive team who will take care of each other and deliver the best project possible, pick poorly and your project outcomes could be very disappointing and personnel will not have a good experience. The post Selecting Personnel For Expat Roles appeared first on ULFIRE.

This article looks at some of the challenges faced when setting up a new virtual team in establishing and building contact between the locations and the personnel. This first contact can be challenging from a cultural and organisational perspective, with many different barriers blocking what is a vital part of the organisational configuration. The post Making First Contact In International Projects appeared first on ULFIRE.

Achieving value from your training budget investment is an ongoing challenge for many projects and businesses, securing the budget is sometimes the easy part, with demands from all corners on its use. This article however argues that at least a portion of a training budget should be spent on leadership and communications skills. The post Training Budgets For Virtual Team Communications appeared first on ULFIRE.

Something as simple as the complexity of language used in teleconferences in virtual teams, particularly those involving personnel for whom English is a second or third language, can lead to confusion and a sense of exclusion. This article argues for the use of a simple project vocabulary to enable all personnel to speak more or less on a level platform. The post Language Problems In Teleconferences appeared first on ULFIRE.

Understanding how to plan and manage communications across timezones is fundamental to building a stable and reliable virtual team communications plan. As the number of timezones between locations increases, projects find themselves stretching their communications further and further and placing a greater emphasis on written communications over verbal, this in turn leads to a lessening of the quality of communications. The post Virtual Team Communications Across Time Zones appeared first on ULFIRE.

Embedding communications equality in your projects and businesses is particularly important in virtual team environments. Having a conscious and considered approach to maintaining equality in communications will mean your personnel regardless of their geographic location are all able to contribute to the dialogue in your projects and work toward its success. The post Communications Equality In Projects appeared first on ULFIRE.

Communication Silos occur in virtually every organisation and project, personnel get so engrossed in their day to day work they forget to share news and information with those outside of their immediate circle. In virtual teams, communication silos can become particularly destructive as the walls of the silos are defined by the distance between the teams and can be impenetrable to any but the most direct efforts. The post Communication Silos In Virtual Teams appeared first on ULFIRE.

Outsourcing has become synonymous with virtual teams for many. As the impact of globalisation and the advance of technology has meant that jobs and workflows are continually changing, relationships are needing to evolve and personnel must adjust to the changes of office dynamics to remain relevant. The post Impact Of Outsourcing On Virtual Teams appeared first on ULFIRE.