Last year was packed with milestones for IWA. Among them was the launch of our fourth office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Having a global IWA community working together around the world brings many benefits to project work but it also has some challenges.

Communication is one of the greatest challenges in software projects regardless of geographical distribution or cultural norms varying from one location to another. Building connections with colleagues and having strong interpersonal relationships within a team improves communication significantly.

While building strong connections among colleagues via digital communication alone is possible, face to face coworking better facilitates strong working relationships and unity among teams. IWA is launching an Ambassador program to support members of our international team in spending more time working face to face, in IWA locations around the world, to build a stronger global community and team.

Every three months, two to three employees from one IWA location will spend time working in another IWA office. This is in addition to our annual company trip where all IWA gathers together. Ambassadors bring culture, expertise, and information from their home base to their host office. Their goal is to forge stronger bonds between locations. Our ambassador program is still in “minimum viable product” phase but we are very optimistic about the outcomes and the impact the program will have on our company.

This month we are sending Phuong and Hai (in the picture) form our Ho Chi Minh Office to our Khon Kaen office. We wish them well and eagerly await the outcomes from this bold and promising initiative.

– Kai, Director IWA Vietnam & Head of Delivery