Accomplishments I proud of

I am grown up in Ethiopian village where I didn’t hear the sound of car and other modern technologies. Unfortunately there is an elementary school within 5 minutes walking distance from my home. The school was one of the schools built by Swedish government to assist Ethiopian government to promote modern education. I started life from there and now I am a university lecturer. My village has now changed; there is a bus from the Addis Ababa, telephone service. Sometimes being lucky may seem work in our life. I am lucky and I had a chance to see many countries – Germany, Switzerland, Holland (Euraope), China and South Korea.

I am working in Addis Ababa University since 2003. When I joined the university, I employed as a lecturer for IT Education Unit in Business Education Department. I initiated to establish an ICT Education Department and my boss agreed on the idea. I was assigned to coordinate the team to develop the new department curriculum and establish the department. It was a challenge to bring people to work together, I took the initiative and did what I do and lastly, I was successful to establish the new Department. I am currently working the as a Department Head.

What makes successful international cross cultural research team

I think I may share my experience of group work. Originally I don’t like group work for the reason is that most of the teams in the group don’t equally (or what is expected from them) contribute for the achievement of group objective. Later when I read a project management book (I don’t remember its title and author), it says that 80 percent of the project work is done by 20 percent of the project team. Now I changed my attitude towards to group work, I am convinced in the objective, I should contribute what I can do without considering others contributions. Others should also have the same belief. Because we all live in different places, we all have different commitments that reduces our energy but we all have to do what we can do.

The other thing is communication is very important – that clarifies our team objective, our duties (what is expected from each of us), makes every body informed about the project progress and creates a sense of ownership in the project, learn the problem of others and find immediate solutions how we can fill the gap to make our project successful and so on.