This is a guest post by Elkhan Shabanov, CEO of DIGICODE, Americas. With his extensive 20+ years of experience, Shabanov defines innovative strategies for IT outsourcing, multinational team management, and synchronization. His expertise in structuring enterprise and cloud technology solutions paves the way for startups and Fortune Global Companies to navigate the complexities of global team coordination.
When it comes to multinational teams in the IT industry, there are normally two approaches. Most companies operate in the following models:
- Teams focused on a particular part of the solution. Each regional team has its mini-project within the larger project.
- Team members mix their roles, working together on common tasks. They share the entire code base of the project and make changes to it simultaneously.
In the first model, each team has an area of responsibility, while in the second one, responsibility is spread across the multinational, diverse team. Both situations require a different approach.
Challenges in managing and operating multinational teams usually come from different backgrounds, different time zones, and a language barrier. Also, there are some cultural differences that one can observe when working with teams from different regions around the globe.
Leadership and management strategies
Being in charge of an international team adds much more to the way you have to act as a leader. You have to consider all the cultural, ethnic, religious, and other differences that may be present within your team. You also need to take into account the fact that if you are local to one part of the team and you want to be a great leader, you should be able to lead in a way that does not show favoritism.
It’s a fine balance that every leader needs to manage: being an effective leader while not showing preferences or treating team members differently. The leader needs to understand these cultural differences, the legal aspects of every country where the team is operating, and the circumstances in which team members live.
There are a few major strategies for multinational teams side by side operations. One of them is assigning each team a project or area of responsibility, and another one is mixing those teams and sharing the responsibilities between the different geographical locations.
A basic division example is frontend and backend development. One team works on the frontend, while another team works on the backend. Someone has to orchestrate coordination between these teams because if the backend changes its API, the frontend will be broken, or if the frontend requests information in a format that the backend doesn’t understand, the backend will not respond. Therefore, someone has to be the conductor of this process. However, the advantage of this process is that each team feels responsible for their particular area.
The second option is when we mix the teams. That option often creates great results because team members get to know each other much better. They know what everybody’s doing, ask each other for help, and are less defensive towards the work they have done. It creates a completely different dynamic in the team. However, there is a challenge with this model if those team members are in different time zones.
Essential tools for synchronizing a multinational IT team
Everyone is familiar with different types of chat platforms available today for distributed teams: Microsoft Teams, Slack, Discord, Google Chat, and many more. The biggest question is how to use these channels of communication effectively. Those that allow channels more focused on certain topics are much more effective, as are the ones that allow search not just for keywords but also for files, links, and attachments.
Moving on to more technological tools that help with the process, not just communication. Everyone is familiar with Jira, where the workload can be distributed among team members, and you can track who is doing what and how much time was spent. Tools like Jira are essential for orchestrating work across the team, allowing everybody to see what other team members are doing. Without tools like these, distributed work would be impossible.
Time management can become a significant challenge if there is no culture of open and constant communication between different teams, especially across different time zones. Questions or issues that need to be addressed may have a turnaround time of 48 hours or more, which is detrimental in today’s dynamic work environment. To overcome this, it’s essential to have all the necessary functions in every time zone.
Using some or all of those tools allows management to be much more aware of what is happening all the time, as it creates transparency. It is beneficial not only for management but also for every team member.
Metrics for assessing the performance of a multinational IT team
In the early stage of development, we do not have many metrics to start with. However, we have a backlog, a roadmap, and a plan for releasing the first version. As we move towards that goal, our KPIs usually include completed tests, delivered features, etc. This allows us to measure the productivity of team members and start assessing quality based on reports from QA. As we move further into production, our metrics become more complex. We start paying more attention to the performance of the software, looking into resources, and, of course, emphasizing quality even more than before. We start examining metrics such as the number of defects post-release, time of resolution, repeating issues, etc.
While we can trace certain defects to a particular person who introduced them, there are no tools that allow us to trace success to the person who made it possible. So we need to compensate by being aware of who is doing a great job and celebrate that. This is a crucial first step in improving your process because we often forget about celebrating success and instead focus more on issues and problems, which can hinder overall improvement projects.
Improvement usually comes from analyzing mistakes, identifying weaknesses, and then building a plan on how to improve those areas. It is essential to gather information about the project, and program, analyze it systematically and frequently, and find areas that need improvement.
Focusing on positive features
Looking at the impact, it is important not to focus solely on the challenges of working with a multinational team. It is equally important to focus on the positive aspects. Similar to any society or country that benefits from diversity, the same thing happens with an IT team. When you have team members coming from different backgrounds and cultures, it can bring unexpected benefits in terms of ideas and brainstorming.
Having team members from different countries can produce ideas that you would not expect from people belonging to that society or cultural group. We often talk about thinking outside the box, but this is where it happens: the more diverse a group you have, the better your chances of coming up with completely new solutions or doing something unexpected, something that may have been overlooked before.
In conclusion, managing multinational IT teams presents unique challenges but also offers significant opportunities for efficient collaboration. Strategies such as diverse team management models, effective leadership, and the use of essential tools for synchronization play crucial roles in overcoming obstacles and maximizing team performance. By focusing on positive features and leveraging the strengths of multicultural teams, organizations can unlock new perspectives and drive impactful outcomes in today’s dynamic global landscape.
