Category Archives: Managing remote team

Remote Interview: Hugo MesserRemote Interview: Hugo MesserRemote Interview: Hugo MesserRemote Interview: Hugo Messer

Lisette Sutherland, author of Collaboration Superpowers, did an interview with Hugo Messer. In the interview, Lisette and Hugo discuss Hugo’s experience setting up Bridge, starting offices in India and Ukraine, the books he’s published and what does and does not work …

How to Overcome Cultural differences when Managing Offshore or Nearshore teams?Hoe Culturele verschillen te overkomen bij het managen van Offshore of Nearshore teams?

We recently launched our new eBook about offshoring and nearshoring : How to Overcome Cultural differences when Managing Offshore or Nearshore teams

In the world of offshoring and global collaboration, there is no topic that is more widely discussed that cultural differences. Or maybe there is one: communication. People with experience in managing remote teams often cite communication as their biggest challenge. But what is communication? And if communication is the problem, where do we start the solution? In most cases, one of the best starting point is ‘culture’ (the others being people and process, which we describe in our other books).

How to prepare for managing a remote team?

We recently launched our new ebook about offshoring and nearshoring: ‘How to prepare for managing a remote team?’ We found that many people skip some very important steps when they move work offshore. Most companies spend a lot of time on country and supplier selection and once that’s fixed, they get going. Many problems in communication and collaboration can be prevented, by focussing on some essential steps before ‘doing it’.

Where do you start when you plan to move work halfway across the globe, to a country and culture you don’t know, several time zones away? What can you do to prepare your company and your people to make offshoring a success? What have other people done in order to prepare for their offshore journey? Typical questions that come up while preparing, are:

Remote Managing: ‘The Practice Is Unruly’Managen Op Afstand: ‘De Praktijk Is Weerbarstiger’

Due to the low wages in Eastern Europe, Dutch companies like to work with them. Yet there are pitfalls discovered by Hugo Messer.

Sometimes, accidental meetings are the start of a successful company. When Hugo Messer worked eight year ago in a printing office, he could not imagine that a meeting with two IT guys from Odessa (Ukraine) would turn his career upside down. ‘I already had seen enormous opportunities for IT-outsourcing in India. I just started my own company when those guys told me more about Ukraine. A country with 47 billion residents and a huge offer of highly educated IT-professionals. Every year, 7.000 to 10.000 young people graduate from technical universities. Next to that, there was no sight at all that the country would join the EU very soon and that is favorable for the wages.’

Do Soft Skills Really Matter in IT?

IT is viewed by many people as being something technical. They have a vision of managers with lot’s of plans, documents and spreadsheets, and nerds that are sitting behind their computer doing the “real work”. It may be out there, but I don’t see that often. What I see are people working together to deliver software solutions that work, which help their customers in their daily work, and deliver business value to the company. Communication and collaboration is essential to make the people that are doing this successful. So for me, soft skills really matter in IT! What do you think?