It began as a small fishing village called Edo more than half a millennium ago. In the many, many years that have passed, Tokyo has evolved into one of the most dynamic urban areas in the world. A study in contrasts, it remains a city bound in tradition, but also one saturated in the latest technology.
Look no further than the “media immersion pods” scattered around town. All the rage among Tokyo's urban youth, the small cubicles—typically rented out by the hour—offer Wiis, DVDs, computer games, internet and manga comics along with a supply of food and drink.
It would be tough to name a place where technology plays a more integral role in daily life. This is, after all, the home of some of the biggest names in electronics.
Japan's aspirations in technology are no secret. In 2001, the government launched an initiative called u-Japan (the “u” stands for ubiquitous network society) that aims to “connect everyone and everything.” The plan envisions “a society where information and communications technology will be everywhere in daily life and can easily be used” by 2010.
And expect Tokyo to play a key role. Setting trends in everything from fashion to finance, it ranks as a global hotspot. And despite being among the most expensive cities in the world to live in, Tokyo is clearly a business hub not just for Asia Pacific, but for all the major international players. More than 70 percent of foreign-affiliated companies in Japan have established headquarters in Tokyo. The lineup includes IBM, Bosch, Pfizer, Deutsche Bank AG and about 2,600 other firms.
The influx of foreign business—and the Japanese government's imperative to develop its technological prowess—has made Tokyo rich with project management career opportunities. And with this growth has come respect as project management leaders receive greater recognition for the strategic roles they have taken on.
To achieve its ambitions, Tokyo (along with the rest of the country) needs savvy project managers. And that has fueled interest in the Project Management Professional (PMP®) credential—with the number of certification holders in Japan jumping from 1,787 in December 2001 to 22,414 last December. Not surprisingly, the bulk of those work in technology.
“More that 80 percent of [Japan's] PMP [certificants] are project management practitioners in IT services,” says Hirotoshi Kamba, PMP, project manager in system integration for IBM Japan in Tokyo and president of the PMI Tokyo Chapter. He also notes that in recent years, several local universities have launched project management classes.
Mr. Hirotoshi says part of the increased demand can be traced to a series of financial hits in the IT sector. “In early 2000, several well-known IT service companies suffered a significant loss with their fixed-price systems,” he explains. “This set their CEOs' heads straight, recognizing project management is indispensable for their business results.”
The newly aggressive business climate prompted a more disciplined approach to projects in IT and other fields. “In the 1980s, money flowed freely and mistakes could be absorbed,” says Murray Duke, PMP, project manager at Datacraft Japan Inc., Tokyo. “In the 1990s, budgets were restricted and projects curtailed. Now, budgets are still restricted, but companies are taking on ambitious projects.”
In IT, that means Japan's mid-sized companies have started investing more in the type of projects that, until recently, were only undertaken by larger firms: connecting overseas branch offices and using newer technologies such as IP telephony and video.
GOING UNDERGROUND
To address traffic congestion and environmental concerns, Tokyo may have to dig deep—very deep.
Keiei Doyukai, a local business association, is floating a proposal to move all of Tokyo's elevated highways 60 meters (197 feet) underground. Originally constructed in the 1960s, the decaying roads cover 32.5 kilometers (20 miles) within the heart of the city, according to The Japan Times. The mega-project will reduce emissions, create more green space and provide substantial economic benefits, too, Yoshitaka Ohashi, an executive with Keiei Doyukai told the paper.
“There is no need to worry about the huge cost of procuring land, which usually accounts for a large portion of the cost estimates for any public-works project—80 percent to 90 percent in some cases,” he said in the interview. Construction time is estimated at two to three years, with the total bill (including the removal of the existing highway structures) coming in at between JPY 1.7 trillion and JPY 2 trillion.
Although users would pay tolls to access the underground highways, their taxes wouldn't finance it. That money would come entirely from the private sector.
The concept of building highways underground in Japan is not new. In fact, more than 73 percent of the country's new expressways are being built underground, according to Metropolitan Expressway Co., which operates Japan's metropolitan highways.
But the company says it has no immediate plans to renovate the Tokyo sections, and the paper reports there's still a question over whether it will agree to abandon part of its business for the sake of the proposed revamp.
And that has left the project stalled.
SOCIAL SCENE
The battle of the social networking sites in Japan is heating up as major U.S.-based service providers Facebook and MySpace take on homegrown favorite, Mixi.
They've got a long way to go. Mixi, launched in 2004, is Japan's largest social networking site with a membership of more than 10 million people and more than 80 percent of the market share.
MySpace, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., ranks as the world's largest social networking site with more than 100 million registered users around the globe. And it has clearly set its sights on the massive market in Japan. When it came on the Japanese scene in November 2006, it teamed up with Tokyo-based internet giant Softbank Corp. in a 50-50 joint venture to form MySpace Japan KK. At the time, Mr. Murdoch told Agence France Presse the country was “by far the largest and most important internet market outside of the United States.”
Rival Facebook is taking a different tactic.
In May, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a Japanese-language version of its site at a news conference in Tokyo, but the company isn't opening a Japan office or hiring a local representative or partner to lead the way.
Instead, Facebook completed the project in only three weeks with the assistance of more than 1,500 amateur and professional translators who were recruited as volunteers from ads on the site's member pages. The end-result, according to The Japan Times, is second-rate translation and limited functionality—only the site's basic functions can be viewed in Japanese.
Currently boasting an estimated 80 million active users, Facebook seems to be banking on its universal appeal. When asked what made Facebook Japan unique, the company's international manager, Javier Olivan, told The Japan Times, “Facebook is exactly the same all over the world.”
10 million
Number of people on Mixi, Japan's top social networking site
80%
Portion of Mixi's market share
With a smaller margin for error, companies are turning to project managers with the PMP credential. “In the last six years, the PMP certification became recognized as the minimum common knowledge in project management,” says Jean Luc Creppy, PMP, associate advisor at Moneo Co., Tokyo.
OPEN BORDERS
As Japanese companies fight for their spot on the global playing field, the environment for business—and projects—is shifting dramatically.
“It used to be that Japanese companies used Japanese project managers and foreign firms used foreign project managers,” says Mr. Duke. “This model no longer holds true as the Japanese economy opens up to foreign firms and as Japanese companies look to optimize by moving resources outside of Japan.”
Last year, The Nikkei reported two major Tokyo-based companies—NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd.—each planned to increase their ranks of software developers outside Japan to more than 10,000 in three years to help alleviate the country's IT talent shortage.
The Nikkei also reported the Japanese government continues to court direct foreign investment, hoping to reach 5 percent of gross domestic product by 2010. That would be double the figure reported in 2006.
The increased globalization has spurred a proliferation of multinational projects that incorporate different cultures and languages. “Project teams are not only in Japan and one other country. [They often have] a mix of members from different countries—sometimes all based in Japan, sometimes based remotely,” says Mr. Duke.
Recently, he finished a project developing a call center with a team comprised of people from six countries—with six different styles of working. “I had to ensure that all the mixed members performed to the level required to please the client and still understand the working style of each member.”
Because Japanese team members are typically quiet and reserved in a meeting, others may interpret that in a certain way depending on their own backgrounds. “A project manager needs to be able to spot these cultural differences and work behind the scenes, if necessary, to make sure the proper communications are getting through,” he says.
But that's just providing project managers with more opportunities to demonstrate their worth. “Japanese firms are beginning to see a project manager as less a technical coordinator and more of a team facilitator and leader,” says Mr. Duke.
WELCOME HOME
The robots are invading! But it's with not only the permission, but the encouragement, of the Japanese government.
The country's 2007 national technology roadmap aims to have 1 million industrial robots installed in Japan by 2025, which could replace an estimated 10 million human workers.
Robots have clearly moved beyond mere fodder for science fiction. Across Japan, they function in a large number of daily applications—planting rice, performing factory work, making sushi, acting as receptionists.
With Japan's rapidly aging population, robots are considered a necessity in replacing the country's dwindling work force and taking care of the elderly. Japan employed more than 370,000 robots at its factories as of 2005, which amounts to approximately 40 percent of the global total, the Associated Press reports.
In recent years, the Japanese government spent $42 million on the first phase of a humanoid robotics project, and plans to spend $10 million a year between 2006 and 2010 to develop crucial robot technologies. The government estimates the industry could grow from about $5.2 billion in 2006 to $26 billion in 2010 and almost $70 billion by 2025.
“We could be looking at a robotics revolution,” Damian Thong, senior technology analyst at Macquarie Bank in Tokyo, told the Associated Press.
Tokyo-based electronics giant Toshiba is hoping its ApriPoco project will be a part of that revolution. Designed to simplify consumer use of remote-control gadgets, the robot responds to voice commands to turn on a TV or an air-conditioning unit, for example.
ApriPoco does require some coaching to learn voice commands, though. So Toshiba's researchers designed it to resemble a baby—27 centimeters (10.6 inches) tall, with large eyes and a bulbous body. The company is banking the design will encourage consumers to be patient with the robot's learning curve.
Toshiba unveiled a prototype of ApriPoco in March 2008—but consumers shouldn't start checking the shelves quite yet. Apparently, the robot needs more development work before Toshiba can announce a sale date.
For now, there's Paro. It may look like a baby-seal stuffed animal—but it has a high-tech edge. Intended as a therapy tool for hospitals and nursing homes, Paro is equipped with sensors that prompt it to blink, move its flippers and make noises when someone pets its fur. The Paro project was created by Takanori Shibata, Ph.D., senior researcher at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. Since their debut in 2005, at least 1,000 Paro units have been sold in Japan. The furry seals are currently used in more than 20 countries.
Demand—and respect—for project leaders is on the rise with the recent changes in regulatory standards, such as Sarbanes-Oxley and its Japanese counterpart, J-SOX, that require formal processes be followed, he says. “The PMP training aligns well to required processes and nicely satisfies these needs.”
Yet while many Japanese companies embrace A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), staple issues such as time management continue to flare up on projects in Japan.
“Many projects are initiated with no specific target date or cost estimate,” says Mr. Creppy. “The working time of internal resources is rarely measured and controlled. Many resources perform overtime as a common practice.”
Tokyo, in particular, has myriad examples of projects run amuck. The Nikkei estimates “nearly JPY 1 trillion has been spent by the public and private sectors to cover the costs of liquidating large projects led by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government or revamping their management.” The newspaper contends that after receiving substantial tax revenues, the Tokyo government launched a series of major projects—almost all of which have failed because of a lack of knowledge.
THE LONG ROAD TO CHANGE
For all of its trend-setting ways, Tokyo remains a society bound by tradition. And project leaders will have to work to change old-guard thinking, says Mr. Duke.
Many Japanese companies are conservative and slow to change, says Graham Street, PMP, business development director at Tokyo-based IT giant Nichiai Inc. He has even detected some linguistic clues that hint at the dynamic. “I found it fascinating that the Japanese word for ‘difficult’ … is made up of two characters which individually mean ‘big’ and ‘change.’”
One fact of life that shows little sign of change is hierarchy—a tradition that project managers ignore at their peril.
Whether a project manager is native to Japan or a gaijin— literally translated as “outside person”—he or she must appreciate that the Japanese not only have a different way of speaking, but a different way of thinking, Mr. Street says.
SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER
Tokyo is known for its sleek and avant-garde architecture, but space is at a premium here—and that can pose interesting project challenges.
Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani was out to make a major fashion statement in the city's famous Ginza shopping district. But the outlet couldn't go beyond the area's maximum allowed height of 56 meters (184 feet).
“Everything is so modern and the space is so limited, but absolutely forward-oriented,” Mr. Armani told DNR, the men's apparel business title. “Tokyo is really the Blade Runner city, which other cities can only copy and follow.”
The result: a €15 million, 12-story, 65,000-square-foot (6,000-square-meter) store—complete with two basement levels—that ranks as one of his most expensive projects ever, according to Reuters.
Mr. Street, who is originally from the United Kingdom, ran into that different way of thinking recently in a voice technology project for a telephone system.
The cultural difference was literally in the numbers.
“We came up with a great solution only to be told we couldn't use it because the new telephone number started with the number seven, which is considered unlucky,” he explains.
Project managers must be aware of the hierarchical structure within their groups, as well as their relationship with outside groups. “For example, a member of a team who is older and has been with the group longer will have a higher level than a new member, even if that new member has more experience in the area the group is working on,” says Mr. Street.
The need for diplomacy extends to project partners as well. “The relationship with outside groups adds another difficult dimension when the outsourced vendor is at a lower level, even if a member of that group is the chairman,” he says. “This relationship dimension has been used by some project managers as a stick to hit the outside vendor, which does nothing good for the project.”
Relationships matter in Japan much more than in most Western countries, says Mr. Duke. “It can take a lot more initial planning and team-building in the beginning of a project before the team begins working well, but a successful project manager who takes this time will be rewarded with the speed at which the latter half of the project will be completed.”
On one of Mr. Duke's recent projects, the lack of clearly defined expectations between the team based in Singapore and the one in Tokyo led to a confrontation that threatened to derail the project and the relationship. “The two teams had different expectations about the level of quality required, and this quickly fell into a crisis situation when the results did not live up to expectations,” he says.
“When I became involved, it was clear the problem was not as simple as just different languages and miscommunications, but different work cultures. Japanese clients were expecting a certain level of quality and professionalism that also reflected local values. On the other hand, the team in Singapore, although more than competent, was accustomed to a more relaxed setting and didn't grasp the subtle requirements to meet the Japanese team's expectations,” Mr. Duke explains.
“We had to go back to square one,” he explains, and figure out how to translate the client's demands into something the Singapore team could deliver.
“As project manager, it was critical to not only bridge the culture gap, but think strategically to ensure client needs are understood by the project team,” Mr. Duke says.
The benefits of such nuanced managerial skills have fostered more respect for the profession.
“Ten years ago, ‘project management’ was part of a job description, not a job title,” says Mr. Duke. “Now, as a symbol of quality assurance, diplomacy and then some, ‘project management’ is more than a job title—it's an essential element of business success.” PM