Project Near Disaster
Many years ago I was working as a programmer/analyst for a prestigious company when there was a decision by upper management to expand the business into Canada. The Canadian office would be housed in Mississauga, ON which is not too far from Buffalo, NY. At the time I was working as the programmer and network system analyst. As part of my duties I would: 1.) make sure the network structures for the offices were in place and 2.) maintain the computer systems. When the decision was made to open the new office and because of the successful work I had done in the past I was put in charge of the office setup. At the time I did not know what a project manager was and heck the role probably did not exist. I had been part of setting up offices in the past so I was comfortable with knowing what is needed to organize the project.
My project plan was well defined and considered every item that would be necessary to setup the office (or so I thought). I was still young and did not understand all the rules of business between the United States and Canada. I was unaware that paperwork needed to be filed in order to work in Canada when you are not a resident of Canada even if the office was part of an American company. I tried to cross the border and when asked my purpose for going to Canada I told them I was going setup our new office in Mississauga. This answer delayed my entrance into Canada and thus my delay the start of the project. I was not the only person with this issue. There were other people being sent from our main office in the United States to the new office in Canada to help with the setup. The proper paperwork had not been completed and filed with Canada so each person attempting to enter into Canada to work on this project had difficulty.
The project that was planned initially worked well once we could get all the workers to the site. The only issue with the project was a delay in the start time so it pushed back the start date for the office opening. Due to the delay of the personnel the office, wiring was not complete when the hardware arrived at the office. This was not a problem because we were doing all our own installation, the deliveries were just that, deliveries. Nothing that was delivered needed expertise other than us to complete a proper setup. Other than the project being pushed by three weeks all steps of the plan worked.
The take away with this project was to plan the logistics for the staff that is required to be on site. There were no issues when working within our own office; it was only the interaction between the two countries that needs to be organized well in advance of the project start date. As I stated at the beginning of this post, this event was many years ago and completing the paperwork requirements for the workers temporarily working in Canada did not take too much time. In today’s world the time frame for completing the paperwork to travel between the countries would be a longer and more involved process. It is vital that any organization working with other countries start the inquiry into what is needed at least six months prior to the start date – probably more like a year. It was a lesson learned and luckily it did not take too long to resolve and not impact the project too drastically.
Hey Helene,
ReplyDeleteGreat post and tricky situation! As I read it, I was reminded of this small town that crossed both borders: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/04/border-gates-separate-unite-towns/?page=all
Anyway, there are two sides to the ease of crossing issue: should it be easy to do so or not? Regardless, I think there's a bigger takeaway from this scenario.
I think it isn't just about what will it take to be onsite but whose responsibility was it to ensure it and how to move ahead if things are not accomplished. A cross-country contract could have this in the assumptions place in the document. Additionally, as you say, the timeline would also have to be increased.
Times they have changed!
Great post, and it gives me insight into an issue that can easily be overlooked!
-Heather
Heather,
DeleteThank you for the link - the story is quite interesting! I would think that border crossing officials would not need the gates because as the article states the people crossing would be familiar people to the towns. If someone is not familiar to agents then they just need to perform the regular checks. If the checks are breaking down then perhaps the governments of both countries need to look at the training of the agents they place at those crossings. Gates will not stop people from crossing if the checks being used do not work well.
Thank you,
Helene
Hi Helene! I feel as though the responsibility of finding out that paperwork needed to be filed would have fallen on someone else's shoulders. Since you were in charge of the office setup, I really think that whomever initially began this new office process should have done been responsible for letting everyone know that the paperwork was mandatory.
ReplyDeleteI do believe the passport process is more lengthy these days, so that could create a problem should another opportunity like this arise. A lesson learned the hard way!
Shannon
Shannon,
DeleteAs a project manager (PM), I feel that all aspects of the project need to be considered by the PM. This issue may be handled by someone other than the PM but the PM should keep this aspect in the plan. As for the passport issue, a passport would be necessary today but not in the past and this issue did not have to do with the passports it had to do with someone coming into the country and taking a job from a Canadian citizen. We have people here in the US that have what are called green cards and visas that allow them to live and work here. The visa is granted to say that the person is working in this country because there is not a citizen that can perform such a task. This is the paperwork that was necessary.
Thank you for your comments,
Helene
Your main issue was that you were unaware of the paperwork that needed to be filed in order to work in Canada as a non-resident. I am not sure if you had already established a passport in order to cross the border, but this would have been my first recommendation. You also stated that there were others that had a similar issue as yourself; a delayed entrance as an American employee. I am also not sure in what order the interactions occurred between you entering or other staff to the Canadian border; but another big issue was that there was no communication about this. You or someone else could have prevented the delays and explanations at the boarder if everyone was told about the difficulty and paper work that should have been completed prior to entering Canada. As you said, once everyone was on site the project was a success; it was the delay that faulted the start of the opening day for your company’s new office. You stated, “The take away with this project was to plan the logistics for the staff that is required to be on site;” it is evident you learned as a PM what was required in order to avoid delayed start dates and that you would probably agree with those two recommendations I suggested for you.
ReplyDeleteHi Brittney,
DeleteThe passports were not the issue - we did not have the visas that were necessary to have a non-resident work in the country. This visa process can be time consuming and complicated even for a short term, temporary situation. This happened many years ago before passports were required to pass to the other country as well so having a passport alone would not have helped the situation. It was the first time the company expanded to another country and would have Canadian citizens run the office; it was just the set-up of the office that had people from the US going to Canada. It was due to this naivety that caused the issue and each of the people coming to help with the set-up were coming on their own so the information could not have been given to the others prior to their attempts to come into the country. This was so long ago that there were no cell phones - we barely had pagers and the pagers some of us had only would show phone numbers to call – no messages. Yes I am that old! :-)
These are all great suggestions and in the future I will keep them in mind when something such as this comes up again.
Helene