Hacking timezones with global teams
We’ve all become accustomed to working remotely over the last few years. The reality of my remote working situation, though, is that the “office” is becoming less-centrally located, resulting in colleagues being spread across the globe which introduces another complexity — the need to navigate timezones. While we may all have some colleagues who are based in other parts of the world, not everyone has had to work daily with immediate teammates in other timezones. There is no one set way to collaborate well in this situation. Each new team and project has its own unique dynamics that impact how to navigate it. I have learned how to leverage the timezones in a positive way, the value of connecting when it allows, and how essential it is to communicate in order to reduce friction.
I began working at Slido (a largely EU-based company) 4 years ago and have always worked remotely from Canada, 6 hours behind all my European counterparts. Yet the extent to which I needed to collaborate with European colleagues has varied. In the first year, I was in a team of two split between Europe and Canada, where close, daily collaboration was essential. To say that this was a learning curve is an understatement, but in a team of two, we were able to iterate quickly until we found a good groove.
The following three years I worked largely independently in the day-to-day of my Ops role. Of course, I still communicated with folks across the business, but it’s different from working together daily. I did maintain one European colleague who was my advisor/mentor with whom I regularly collaborated.
Now, I’m once again part of a team divided between Europe and Canada, but this time, a much larger team of 12 and I’m the only one based outside of Europe. The general consensus within the Data team used to be that everyone should be based in the same region, so when I joined it was a step outside of their established norm. Right away, a teammate and I joined up on an analysis — a successful first project within our newly global team. Our work was not hindered by the timezone; in fact, we were able to use it to our advantage.
Make the most of it
For so long, work was local and in-person; that was the standard and considered the ideal. While working across timezones has its challenges and may not be the “ideal” we are accustomed to, it’s not the end of the world. In fact, there are even some hidden benefits.
When I first started working at Slido, I realized that timezones can multiply time if leveraged well. It’s like two people running a 500-meter race at the same time, or running a 1-km relay race. Each person might be running the same distance, but in a relay, together you can cover a farther distance. Similarly, with timezones, one person can be working in CET, handover to a colleague in EST who can pick up where they left off and build on it. This was a big part of how we worked in my first team, and also in this analysis.
Timezones are also particularly helpful if you’re using a tool that doesn’t allow simultaneous changes. This recent analysis relied primarily on data visualizations, so we chose to use Superset as a joint notebook of sorts in order to keep everything in one place. We had a “Work In Progress” dashboard to create charts and record observations prior to compiling our findings and writing up the analysis. Because Superset doesn’t allow two users to work in a dashboard simultaneously, the timezones served us well. Because it was just the two of us, we tag-teamed it, like a relay.
While writing up the analysis, Google Docs’ “Suggesting” feature for edits made it easier and more efficient to provide feedback on each other’s work. Frankly, this was also necessary since the document was 20 pages long. Yes, you can work in Google Docs at the same time, but the timezones were still beneficial as we could both write and edit the document without getting in each other’s way and also give feedback on each other’s suggestions.
Maybe timezones are not the (most) ideal way of working, but let’s be honest, they’re not going anywhere in this remote-work world so we may as well make the most of them.
Take advantage of the overlap
Since we overlapped for a few hours, we scheduled a daily check-in call to discuss the analysis, providing updates and ensuring we were aligned on the progress and next steps. From my perspective, these daily check-ins were not only valuable for the project delivery, but also for morale. Working remotely can be lonely, but even more so in a globally dispersed team. Even when collaborating with someone, there is the risk that folks will still feel isolated, disjointed, and like they are working alone as a result of the timezones. Daily check-ins afforded time to connect. Both the social chit-chat and the work discussions during these calls helped to foster teamwork despite working mostly independently throughout the day. It was a space of mutual support where we were able to express concerns, vent frustrations, help make sense of each other’s muddled thoughts, share the burden of the project, etc. These things kept the project moving and got us through a marathon analysis.
Communicate and reduce friction
Whether async or daily calls (but hopefully both), communication is key. Since I was 6 hours behind my colleague, it was a priority for me to always provide feedback and answer questions during my working day so that it would be waiting for her when she logged on for the next day. When I was logging off, I provided updates on what I had done so she would have context for her next working day. My teammate likewise did the same for me. If help was needed, I would ask async before closing my day (and vice versa). This served a dual purpose- first, it was a reminder of things to discuss on our next daily call, and secondly, it provided a heads up for the other person so that exploration (if required) could be done before the call. Ideally this way, any blockers would be removed as quickly as possible. The goal always being to keep things moving and reduce roadblocks.
Working across multiple timezones you always have to be thinking ahead. You’re thinking of what you need and giving the rest of your team enough time to deliver. You’re thinking of when someone else needs something from you and making sure to account for the time difference in your delivery. For example, if my European colleagues need something by Friday, that really means Thursday for me so that I don’t deliver it after they are done working on Friday. In thinking ahead this way, it minimizes stress and frustration for both parties. Try to anticipate what can create timezone frictions and be proactive about reducing them.
One of the biggest challenges and most painful things that arises is the back-and-forth in communication. Within the same timezone, folks can go back and forth multiple times in the same day. When working across timezones, the same interaction could take days. To reduce this back-and-forth, which takes longer and is much more costly across timezones, it’s best to provide as much detail as necessary upfront. Every person has a different definition of “necessary”, but in this context, I like to err on the side of more, rather than less, as it reduces needless friction and delays.
If this kind of communication isn’t second nature to you, allow me to offer some advice based on my previous work experience. Prior to Slido, I did data collection in public health research for several years. I started as a telephone interviewer where we were trained to “probe”, that is, to ask additional questions to ensure clarity. Ultimately, a respondent’s comments needed to be able to stand alone and be understood by anyone, without any additional context from the call. Learning how to probe, to tease out essential information and add (seemingly) obvious details that help a person’s comments to stand alone, is the same tactic I use when communicating remotely and across timezones. I try to anticipate frequently asked questions or areas of confusion and address them proactively. My goal is to make sure that I provide enough context so that anyone will be able to easily understand the information the first time, thus reducing delays and improving the efficiency of cross-timezone communication and collaboration.
I know that this is not everyone’s communication style. Some people prefer brief, concise, to the point, no extra detail. Sometimes our Slido value of “simply clever” can be used to support brevity in communication. However, the two don’t have to be at odds. In fact, it’s actually quite “simply clever” to be able to read something once and understand it, without having to ask follow-up questions. The goal should be to provide as much detail as necessary in the most clear and concise way.
These are just a few learnings, but remember that there is no magic formula to follow for successful cross-timezone collaboration; there are so many factors that influence it including the nature of work and the people involved. So keep learning and adapting.
