How Do You Maintain Long-Distance Projects?

Posted by Cliff on Friday February 10, 2006 @02:25PM from the lines-of-communication dept.

overseer asks: "Recently, I've been working with an increasing number of overseas workers. Regardless of where they are located, or how well they are trained, the common problem that we have is communication across timezones. In a typical 9-6:30 day, none of my working hours overlaps with those of my coworkers in Europe and Asia. If I come in early, or stay late, I can call one or the other but the truth of the matter is that most of my communication is done through email, and results in (at best) a 15 hour turnaround time for even the smallest question. This is OK for large, slow moving projects, but when we are working on 'Now' problems, or doing detail work, it makes it very hard to communicate. It also makes casual communication or constructive feedback next to impossible. Several of my coworkers have adapted by working extended hours, or by taking their work home with them -- this is something that I'd like to avoid. What methods have Slashdot readers found/created to get around the problem of working in multiple timezones?"

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Not that I have any experience doing this by ashpool7 · 2006-02-10 14:52 · Score: 2, Informative

but if you have projects where you intermittently (say for a month) have to get more instantaneous feedback, shouldn't each team adjust its working hours? Say you get the afternoon off, but you work in the evening with a dinner break. To make this easier on everybody, swap it around so they have to do the same.

Don't know if you have that kind of power to change the working hours in the day, but for a short period of time, I think it would work pretty well.