Comments on: Teams Across Timezones

By: Create Effective Project Milestone Sheets

Create Effective Project Milestone Sheets — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:01:46 +0000

[...] you’re located in a different timezone from your client, identify the timezone that the schedule is based on. This isn’t such a big [...]

By: WebWorkerDaily » Archive Permatime: New Resource for Global Teams «

WebWorkerDaily » Archive Permatime: New Resource for Global Teams « — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:00:09 +0000

[...] (11:00am) Mike Gunderloy No Comments We’ve looked at a couple of utilities designed to help teams spread across timezones stay on track, including the FoxClocks addon to Firefox and the EasyTZ site. A new approach, [...]

By: Web Worker Daily » Archive World Time Engine Knows Timezones «

Web Worker Daily » Archive World Time Engine Knows Timezones « — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:00:14 +0000

[...] 7th, 2008 (2:00pm) Mike Gunderloy No Comments We’ve discussed the hassles of dealing with multiple timezones and distributed web-working teams before. New site World Time Engine (in open beta) tries to bring [...]

By: Adam Scott

Adam Scott — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 02:43:22 +0000

Phone services are really helping companies spread themselves out, too. Virtual phone places like onebox and GotVMail route calls and forward messages with minimal central nexi to get clogged up. Even large corps like FedEx are in on the act. For better or worse, the workplace is wherever you’re willing to start working :P

By: maol symbolisch » Teams Across Timezones

maol symbolisch » Teams Across Timezones — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:36:44 +0000

[...] den Artikel Working with teams across timezones des indischen Techmag mit vielen Trivialitäten: Teams Across Timezones. Die wichtigste Komponente bei regional verteilten Teams ist wirklich, dass sich die Teammitglieder [...]

By: Jennifer Gerlach

Jennifer Gerlach — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:49:39 +0000

I really enjoyed your article.

Currently I am in the same boat as you. My company is spread between, San Diego, San Fran, Dallas, SC, Georgia, NY, London and Russia. Time zones can be difficult to coordinate for all company meetings, but otherwise it actually works quite well. We are able to service all of our clients because their is someone present in most awake hours of there day. It works well for http://www.protuo.com.

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 04:51:41 +0000

Meeting logistics can be especially challenging for remote teams like this. You almost always use a teleconference to get everybody on the line together and then some kind of desktop sharing program like NetMeeting or WebEx to show slides, demos, or whatever. The teleconferences are typically set up by default to beep whenever someone enters the call, so what happens is you get stragglers that cause beeps on the line which interrupts whoever is currently talking. Then that person will ask for the IP for the NetMeeting only to have another person come on, cause a beep, and ask the same question. I've seen this go on for almost 20 minutes of a one hour meeting. The point is that, you need to be sure to set up your teleconference so that the interruptions are minimized and broadcasting the desktop sharing information in an email or Outlook appointment update right before the meeting starts will save you some time. Another aspect of meetings with people from different parts of the world is word usage. English has become a de facto standard for international meetings, but by no means is everybody speaking the same version. Words and phrases can have very different implications in California than they do in India. I recently posted an article on my blog entitled The evils of slang in an International work force that goes into this in more detail.

By: Michael's Thoughts

Michael's Thoughts — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:34:41 +0000

Daily Report, Mar 8

Cisco and IBM … Cisco and IBM announced a partnership for the integration of their respective wares to deliver a unified communications and collaboration solution to joint customers. “At the core of the unified communications and collaboration (UC2)…

By: links for 2007-03-07 at Baron VC

links for 2007-03-07 at Baron VC — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 20:22:49 +0000

[...] Teams Across Timezones This is becoming the norm, especially for open source software. Do we even need offices? The only problem is the money. (tags: web working) [...]

By: The Anywhere Office » Teams Across Timezones

The Anywhere Office » Teams Across Timezones — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:18:35 +0000

[...] Web Worker Daily – Teams Across Timezones [...]

By: Rusty Weston

Rusty Weston — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 07:30:46 +0000

The unfortunate truth about global team collaboration is that you are constantly re-prioritizing between the ideals of work-life balance and the imperative to avoid becoming a bottleneck to a team 13.5 hours ahead of you. Streaming your work product is fine, but most projects are iterative and there’s no tech workaround for a lack of real-time collaboration. For short or long-term projects, I highly recommend videoconferencing. It won’t overcome all of the laws of physics but it does save a lot of wear and tear on your travel budget and your body. The other advantage of videoconferencing is it helps with tone in communications – you don’t want to send negative messages via IM or email.

By: Pimp Your Work - Hands across the timezones–tips for working with distant teams

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:13:18 +0000

[...] Use informal exchanges about sports, movies, and family to increase bonding Source: Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Teams Across Timezones « [...]

By: Janko

Janko — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 01:32:04 +0000

One aspect that I have been struggling with is that mutiple time zones oftentimes force you to be available 24/7. People bombard you with e-mails and instant messages around midnight, call you at 3am …

At least the wakeup calls stopped once I switched to Skype for all my phone business. Now people can call me around the clock – and I don’t have to stare at a phone display to figure out wheter or not I should pick up.

By: ajaxus

ajaxus — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:13:36 +0000

Curently I am on the same position, working from Sofia (Bulgaria) and dealing with management in UK. This makes 2 hours difference, so instead of coming to work at 9am I can do better – 11am and nobody will notice that.

The solution is strong e-mail communication!!!

By: rick gregory

rick gregory — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:45:07 +0000

Mike,

Good article. Two thoughts for you…

1) see if relatively minor adjustments in meetings/calls make it much easier for the team as a whole. For example, if you’re in Seattle and you have weekly calls with a European office, 7am for you might be 4pm for them (depending on Daylight time and their exact location). Can they meet at 5 their time making it an easier 8am meeting for the West Coast participants?

2) Make the time shifts work for you. I’ve managed people in Moscow (Russia, not Idaho) and London… and I’m in Seattle. Well, sometimes this meant we’d have new code waiting for us in t he morning, could do a quick call with them to talk about any issues (and maybe do a smoke test to catch bad issues ASAP) then test through the day. The end of our day would be the middle of their night… so they’d have new bugs when they got up. That dynamic actually helped efficiency.