Assessment 1 Instructions:

Pastori Ltd is an Australian-based software company that develops complex and highly specialised products enabling the smooth integration of various elements of their clients’ supply chains. Pastori operates software development teams in Hyderabad, Milan, and Guangzhou. Project management is centralised in the Head Office in Brisbane. Additional development teams are being planned in a variety of offshore locations.

You are a consultant who has been hired to advise on best-practice for managing the various remote teams involved in developing the company’s products now and into the future.

Using the cultural dimension models proposed by Trompenaars and Hofstede (or a combination of both) you are tasked with identifying five aspects of cultural difference that need to be taken into consideration in the planning phase of international projects.

For each of these potential issues consider the likely impacts of failing to manage for cultural difference appropriately and nominate one mitigation approach (for each identified issue) that is most likely to reduce the potential impact of these cultural differences. Note that the advice you provide is to be applicable to both the existing international offices as well as any that might be opened in the future.

The scope of the task

This task requires you to have a clear focus on the elements that comprise the Project Execution Plan (PEP) in international Project management and the potential for cross-cultural misunderstandings arising from misaligned cultural expectations in relation to each of those elements.

As this report is to be used within Pastori it needs to be logically structured and professionally presented. Please integrate theory from this subject and your own independent research into your report. Submissions that are not grounded in theoretical perspectives and relevant, authoritative research are unlikely to score well.

Preparing your submissions

Prepare your submission as a Word document, up to 1,500 words, +/- 10% and excluding list of references. The report should be structured in a way that leads the reader through your arguments. Please ensure you include at least six references to academic publications, using the Harvard referencing style. Refer to the Assessment 1 marking rubric before starting work on this assessment.