Since I started at Avanade 11 years ago, I’m working on projects with international teams continuously. That’s very interesting and a lot of fun, but it’s also not easy and it brings some challenges. In this blog I share what I’ve learned from it.

Working in international teams is sometimes required to facilitate 24/7 support, but mostly it’s essential to be able to quickly ramp up a large international project team. Especially when working on big projects for our global (but also local) clients. On a day-to-day basis this gives a lot of opportunities to learn and grow my own skills by managing and working together with these multicultural teams to deliver the projects.

Cultural differences

In my experience, it is not the actual work to execute which is the most challenging (although the projects were definitively complex), but to overcome the distance and understand cultural differences and keep a connection to all global team members.

One thing which usually takes some time to resolve is the ‘Dutch directness’ versus other cultures which might traditionally still be more hierarchical based.

While it usually takes several weeks to find a middle ground to allow the entire team to speak up and share their opinion and experience (irrespective of the team hierarchy), it contributes to an inclusive and ‘one-team’ mentality as well. A good relationship with the team leads of each location is essential here because he/she has the face-to-face feeling with the team and can flag any potential challenges (and of course share successes) early with the remote project manager or leads.

One 24/7 global team

One of our best practices of an international project is a large global migration project where we’ve prepared the technical migration and provided 24/7 support during the migration and a month afterwards. During this ‘hyper care’ period both the Dutch and India team were working in shifts to cover the customer’s global teams and employees. As we’ve prepared towards this moment, all team members knew what to do and were working as a well-oiled one team, despite the 7.300 kilometers distance. The team had everyone on speed dial and within a phone call or text message even the off shift colleagues were available to help and contribute to the overall success of the migration.

A face-to-face connection is essential

Of course, a face-to-face connection requires a lot of preparations. As described earlier, a good relationship with all team members (and especially the team leads) is essential. To achieve this, I always try to travel to the team in India or Philippines to have face-to-face meetings, working sessions and, of course, the after-work dinner and team building activities. Despite all technical tools for remote collaboration, these one- or two-week visits generate a huge ramp-up in understanding the work, providing knowledge transfer and contribute to the ‘one-team’ mentality with a safe and inclusive work environment where everyone feels respected despite any personal, cultural, religion or location differences.

Support from Avanade

I really appreciate the possibilities Avanade provides me to work with global teams from my first project in 2008 and continued in supporting me to gain more knowledge and insights about other cultures and to meet our teams around the world. It’s really cool to see that the Avanade DNA is present globally across our 30.000 employees spread over 80 locations and 20 countries. For me, the Avanade DNA consists of flexibility, focus and persistence to deliver the coolest projects with the latest technology, as well as lots of fun and willingness to keep growing and learning.

And, of course, all these global projects also gave (and still give) me a nice chance to discover the world and do some sightseeing while travelling for the project 😊.