i have lead projects in 3 countries in se asia i am in the philippines currently, i find the main issues 1.) lack of confidence 2.) little familiarity with business processes we take for granted 3.) process orientated. but the interpretation of that process will vary depending on capabilities and the immediate situation 4.) reluctance to take the lead or a high level of personal involvement in a project solutions i have found so far (needs much improvement) 1.) i have set aside time, for people to visualise products and processes and to play with good code bases. 2.) encouragement prevails but light criticism used sparingly is also required(do it with humour). u have to foster a family environment to some extent 3.) re code : my only solution has been to micro manage, a code framework has to be in place for people to write into, keep code blocks small(<5 days) and blackboxed. junior - mid level developers will code to the path of least resistance, to deliver a result that fits one requirement on the one set of test data they are codeing on - solution sourcesafe and bi-daily check ins. one company estimates that they lost 80% of development time on mis-interpretations. this could easily slip to 100% 4.) if u can move currently ineffective people into peripheral stand alone areas. bad code gets copied. 5.) testing - get someone independent of the group to do this 6.) know u peoples limitations anyway here is the worst case scenario, in another se asian country. all smiles, u can not outwardly hurt anybodies pride incase they die and come back and haunt u(serious) a directories and advertisement company hired 30 developers, management did not know code. they thought they built a database app. no they built a html template that was manually updated and a new file created. 40,000 files and then they placed some of the data in the db. management did not realize for 20 months, until they wanted a css change. sorry dude micro management, infrastructures, architecture and personal code fixing is required. until patience pays off and appropriate talent rises or walks in the door. get personally involved in the recruitment process best of luck - it is not easy