Global SAP Project Management Through Different Cultures : a Real Challenge

Global SAP Project Management Through Different Cultures: a Real Challenge

We have recently passed through an SAP Rollout regionally in four different countries in Latin America and now is the time where we usually start to write, document or even sometimes just store in our minds the lessons learned, gains, losses, victories and failures, thinking about ways it could have been done differently.

One of the greatest lessons and outcomes of such kind of project is that you always can learn ways to communicate better and better, and sometimes no matter how hard you try, you have to communicate again and again ideas, project phases, new information, all kinds of subjects, in order to make people really understand the root meaning of each phrase, phase, area and task of a global project.

It was no surprise having to address the same problem several times throughout the teams, and even though sometimes it seems that you are communicating less (or more) than expected, some people are really not used to global projects, in a sense that it is not every day that they have a project that deals and change their business processes and day to day activities for good and in an expected timeframe. Sometimes the management of change hurts a little.

It has also been of immeasurably value the cross cultural environment we get involved to, with mixtures of cultures, impressions, opinions, and such different mindnesses sometimes...enriching the moments and energizing everyone with good discussions.

When you have to make people understand that things are changing, and it is actually for good reasons, and above all in the end they are the ones who'll be valuated and helped by its evolution, is when the hard times really comes on a project like ours. The argue, the frustration and the expectable lack of visibility upon the outcomes in the near future sometimes causes sorrow, depressing attitudes and aggressive mood and rejection to everything related to such project activities.

But in the end and as the systems evolves, everyone can foresee that the future will be really good, smoothly processed and with standardized solutions throughout the countries, integrating reports, visibility, traceability and enhancing the overall quality of the business processes.

All in all, it was and still is a challenge to have such great opportunities like this to revaluate your own ways of thinking and cooperate on a global environment system, making more and more closer cultures, people and the systems, all together to run a successful business like ours.