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Managing Global R&amp;D Projects: Practical Experience in Building Project Management Competency

Global R&D Projects for developing software products using globally distributed teams are excellent examples of exploiting most talented and skilled resources to develop innovative products at affordable cost. Due to nature of collaboration, the global teams need to work as a single cohesive unit, or a virtual team, and this is a major challenge. The global Project Manager (PM) needs to be supported by highly competent local PM responsible for the local team. As some of these organizations have used a Global Software Engineering (GSE) model for over a decade, the local teams have evolved as Centers of Competence. This means the local PM needs to interact directly with experts of different disciplines such as sales, marketing, product management, services and compliance. The PM competency development program needs significant enhancement in content and approach to support the new role and responsibility. Siemens is one of the leading proponents and beneficiaries of GSE and many of its business divisions work in collaboration with software engineering teams at its Corporate Technology Development Centre India (CT DC IN). These software teams with size ranging from 10-80 engineers need a local Project Manager working along with the global PM. To ensure success of collaboration, local PMs need to have competency in software technology, domain know-how, resource management, people management and handling of inter-cultural issues. This paper shares experience gained from planning and delivery of a dedicated competency development program designed for project managers with their individual working experience ranging from 8-20 years. This program integrated existing external and internal courses and parts of a governance framework into a single curriculum lasting 3 months. During execution of the program valuable information was gathered providing useful insight to improve the effectiveness and acceptance of the program.