Here's how you can manage unforeseen delays or deadline changes when working internationally.

Project Management Methodology helps here a lot. There are versions reasons which are under our control, we need to keep this mind and access the situation time to time. Sometimes buffer helps to absorb the impact. Whenever it directly impact, we need to identify the severity of impact and take stakeholders in loop. First of all, they become aware & as PM, you need to ask for necessary support to reduce or nullify the impact.

We all know that procrastination is the main reason for projects getting delayed. But I had reverse experience, I.e. benefits of pre-planning. A good planning makes helps a lot. Here, effective communication plays very important role as if you tell the concerned officer, stake holder in advance whats his role, responsibility, what’s exactly is to be done, he/she prepares accordingly.

Majority of projects, may be professional, personal, Govt, social etc are delayed always. We need to constantly access the situation and adductor the plan accordingly. We need to know the critical path, in fact we need to identify it well in advance & see that it is not touched by unwanted actions. There are various ways & means to improve the situation like fast tracking, putting additional resources, working extra time etc. one need to take full control, track the progress continually, check & make etc

Inter-personal relationship becomes paramount important in International Working. Every country, region has different customs & need to respect that. I had received the opportunity to work at almost 12 countries across globe and one simple most thing I used is ‘Respect Next Person, irrespective of his rank & profile. No doubt senior level officers helped a lot but many times juniors did wonders. Also had one bad experience, I spoke in local language during one of the important meeting while abroad for important matter, one officers was very angry & left the meeting. I had to say sorry to him then he excused me.

There are two kinds of "critical situations": 1) Unforeseen - Tool outages, a strike in a country that prevents work, communication for a critical issue that was just discovered, etc. If your team can "follow the sun", you can have your regional team members get started on mitigation plans with stakeholders/vendors within their time zone as the issue is identified. It helps to have a playbook of mitigation plans, and the contacts required by region in one central location. 2) Self-Inflicted - Unrealistic stakeholder expectations, project scope creep, poor planning, or Timmy finally getting around to approving the project. Those issues are much harder to address. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.