We are completing a project to re-assess our strategy for 2009 in light of the worldwide economic slowdown and its impact on IT outsourcing.  Since a major focus for us is the USA it also includes an awareness of the incoming administration’s attitude towards outsourcing.   Our primary focus is the financial services industry and we anticipate a much more difficult environment in 2009, especially with respect to starting new relationships.  So we will focus on our current relationships and ensuring that they remain healthy.  In general we are taking a cautious view to the ...

I've received a few requests for information about how to find a PM job in China.

http://china.recruit.net/

http://www.newchinacareer.com

http://jobs.china.hudson.com/

www.theladders.com

And linkedin.com seems to have a few listings.  I can't vouch for any of these but you can try them.

Recently a potential partner arrived in China for detailed discussion and negotiation about a long term partnership.  The Chinese are great hosts with extravagant welcoming banquets and small (or not) gifts like Hangzhou's famous Longjin green tea or locally produced silk items.  Understanding this tradition our guests came prepared with several mementos.  One of these was a green (their company color) hat complete with logos and special messages.  Well, there was great reluctance to accept such gifts but our guests persisted in forcing acceptance.  Of course they did not realize that in China "green hats" or Lu Maozi have a special significance.  One is said to have a green hat when your wife has been cheating on you.  And in fact foreigners wearing green hats in public will receive more than their fair share of strange looks and stares.

It ...

Looking for good PMs. I was reviewing various lists of reasons why information technology projects fail and found it interesting how seldom communication problems are mentioned.  In our off ...

I work for Hundsun Technologies which is a Chinese domestic software company that has in the past few years been building a global services business.  With customers in the USA and Europe we have focused a lot of effort in continuously improving our communications processes.  We currently have a project underway to integrate a set of tools to support effective communications.  On our projects project management, architecture and design is typically performed by onshore Hundsun staff  and detailed design, development and testing is typically performed at our offshore development center in Hangzhou, China.

The past two weeks have been enlightening for me.  Two rather obvious events reinforced my own thoughts on a couple of topics.  I was in my office on the 12^th floor of an office building in Hangzhou when the earthquake in Sichuan happened.  Sitting at my desk I began to feel queasy and considered that I was having a medical problem before I realized that the building was noticeably swaying.  Having lived in Southern California for 10 years I wasn’t particularly distressed and quickly concluded what was going on.  ...

March 31, 2008

I’ve been out of commission for awhile but happy to be back.  I feel like writing about getting medical treatment in China but that’s a different story.  Well, we are now pretty much past the annual planning season for Chinese companies which revolves around the Chinese New Year.  I’ve been on a two year quest (since I joined the Chinese company that I work for) to transform our organization into a more customer focused, project and program oriented organization.  Seems easy enough.

Happy Chinese New Year!

There have been lots of stories recently about the bad weather in China and its impact on people and the economy during the Spring Festival.  It’s billed as the biggest mass movement of people in the world in which 100’s of millions of people take to the roads, rails, and airways.  It’s the center of the annual cycle for people and businesses.  Our company’s all hands annual meeting is the 1^st day after the holiday and culminates with a dinner and live performances.  The perfo ...

It’s the holiday season and I’m in the USA for a couple of weeks enjoying a rest.  The Western year in China ended with a rush.  More than one years effort, at the Chinese software company at which I work, in preparing for an SEI CMMI certification culminated with a one week long formal assessment which ended the day of our Christmas party on December 23rd, and the result of which was presented to the team on the day after on Christmas Eve. 

Well, from the general attitude at the Christmas party, you would not have guessed that such an important event was scheduled for the next day.