For me, the most underestimated phase of any project is the one that looks, from the outside, as if nothing is happening yet: the planning phase. It’s demanding, it eats up time and energy – and in an intercultural setting, it quietly decides whether a project will stand or fall.

My students discover this very quickly in their own projects – sometimes painfully so. The moment when they realise, “Oh, we never actually agreed on what start or done means,” comes earlier than they expect.

I often ask them to picture a simple scene: an international project kick-off.

1. The German project lead arrives with a clear structure, risk register and Gantt chart.

2. The American colleague mainly wants to build momentum: “Let’s just get started.”

3. The Chinese colleague first checks whether the relationship level is stable and hierarchies are respected before making any firm commitments.

4. The Scandinavian project manager looks around the room and asks: “Is everyone really on board?”

All of them are talking about planning – and yet, they mean very different things.
Same room, same language (English) – but very different project cultures.

Why is this planning phase so delicate?
Because it’s invisible.

In reports and slides, we celebrate milestones and achievements. The tough weeks before that – when expectations are negotiated, responsibilities clarified and risks finally spoken out loud – rarely make it onto a slide. But that’s where the project’s DNA is written.

Because it’s culturally charged.

In some cultures, good planning means detailed steps, clear owners, firm deadlines.

In others, it means a shared direction, flexible space to adapt, and trust that “we’ll figure it out on the way.”

Elsewhere, the first priority is the relationship level: Who decides what? Who carries the risk to lose face?

Because it’s full of silent assumptions.

What exactly is a “realistic timeline”?

When does a “yes” count as a real commitment?

How openly do we talk about risks – or do we keep concerns to ourselves so no one is embarrassed?

Most misunderstandings in intercultural projects start right here – long before the first ticket appears in the project tool.

So what does this mean in practice?

In my experience, the planning phase in intercultural projects needs its own status – as a full project phase, not just a warm-up:

1. Talk openly about your planning culture:

   How detailed do we want to be? How do we handle changes? Who decides what – and how visible should those decisions be?

2. Create a shared vocabulary:

   Words like “commitment”, “priority A”, “risk”, “go-live” or “project start” sound simple – but they don’t mean the same thing for everyone. Taking an hour to align on these terms can save weeks later.

3. Use the kick-off as a real alignment ritual:

   Not just to present goals, but also ways of working:

   How often do we check in? How do we escalate conflicts? What matters more to us – speed or thoroughness?

4. Plan for cultural learning curves:

   Not every conflict is personal. Very often it’s “just” a different understanding of time, responsibility and communication.

For me, in intercultural project management the planning phase is not the prelude to the “real work”.

It is the real work – just on the level of expectations, culture and trust.

So the key question is not:

“How fast can we move from planning to execution?”

But rather:

“Do we actually understand each other well enough to be talking about the same project?”