This is often inevitable. Traditional project management has for over 50 years emphasized getting the best and most critical people on the team. In general, this has led to the failure of many international projects. There is a need for people with critical skills and knowledge at certain points in the project, but this need does not extend across the entire project.

This is not just true of emerging nations. It is also true of some developed countries since the infrastructure often deteriorates the further you get from major cities. People often assume infrastructure issues away in the twenty-first century. This is not a good idea. Infrastructure is even more important today. Poor infrastructure has an impact on expectations and what people view as feasible. In some parts of India, for example, the communications are very primitive. Carrying out a project can be very challenging—even if you employ satellite telephones.

While the project may benefit the company or organization overall, there should be local benefits as well. Each location has its own business needs and concerns. If a project does not address or even acknowledge these needs, then the project will often be seen as negative since it robs resources from dealing with local needs. The project is perceived as an unwelcome diversion. Each location has its own needs. You should not generalize based on one location.

A vendor or supplier wants to get work. They often state how they have offices and customers in various locations. Potential customers often accept this as a fact. Only later do they find out that the supplier presence in some of the locations is marginal at best. In one case, a vendor claimed that maintenance was available in all 10 countries that the project was going to be implemented in. This turned out to be false. They really only had a presence in 6 of the countries. In the other 4, there was only a sales office. The vendor then had to fly people in from other locations to provide support. Needless to say, the costs were higher and the time to do repairs longer.

In many projects the project leader identifies and tracks problems that impact the project. However, if the project work is going on in several locations, it becomes more difficult and complex to determine the relevant issues in each location. Some project leaders may not treat an issue as significant if it only affects one location.

Each location has individual problems and situations. Management at headquarters may not want to hear about these things. They rely on the managers put in place in the location to deal with the situations. This was the only way centuries ago when communications were poor. Remote managers and governors were given wide discretion on what to do. The problem is exacerbated by local managers who want to get promoted and so tend to push local problems “under the rug” if they cannot deal with them.

Suppose you have an international project that is based at headquarters. The project leaders are there as well. So you would think that if the project leader required a decision on a situation, it would be straightforward. This is often not the case. Discussing and dealing with the situation may require a great deal of coordination with several locations. There may be many managers involved. All of these factors tend to stretch out decision-making.

In one project we were involved with there were 4 countries involved. There was virtually no turnover in 2 countries. There was some turnover (about 25%) in another. However, in the fourth there was over 50% turnover. This was due to the labor market in the area. It was also due to weak local management.

Employees were really turned off. The project could not address the local management problem except to bring this to management’s attention. The approach was to construct the project so that the work in the country was of very limited scope. Work was transferred to other locations.