Distributed teams and the bane of time zones

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —June 19, 2007
Filed in Collaboration

Lynda Gratton at MITSloan has written a short article of some factors that might affect the performance of a distributed team. I’m a little sceptical of what Gratton calls “10 golden rules for making virtual teams more productive” because there are so many factors that influence how well a virtual team will work and I thought we had done away with rules when dealing with complexity.

I do agree, however, how important it is to consider time zone issues. I’m three weeks into a new virtual team and I’m surprised by the lack of awareness of team member time zones. For example, when calling for people’s available time for the next meeting my colleagues in the USA often volunteer to have meetings between 10am and 3pm which generally equates to midnight to 5am Melbourne time. I think if you work in a global virtual team you need to become mindful of your colleague’s time zones and avoid suggesting meetings at 2 in the morning.

Appreciating time zones comes with experience and one of the organisations that seem to really understand this is CPSquareJohn Smith and the other community practitioners who run a plethora of online events.

Here are Lynda’s 10 golden rules.

  1. Invest in an online resource where members can learn quickly about one another
  2. Choose a few team members who already know each other.
  3. Identify “boundary spanners” and ensure that they make up at least 15% of the team.
  4. Cultivate boundary spanners as a regular part of companywide practices and processes.
  5. Break the team’s work up into modules so that progress in one location is not overly dependent on progress in another.
  6. Create an online site where a team can collaborate, exchange ideas and inspire one another.
  7. Encourage frequent communication. But don’t try to force social gatherings.
  8. Assign only tasks that are challenging and interesting.
  9. Ensure the task is meaningful to the team and the company.
  10. When building a virtual team, solicit volunteers as much as possible.

About  Shawn Callahan

Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:

Comments

  1. Mark Schenk says:

    http://www.timeanddate.com/ is a very handy site for time zone information and it has a meeting planner allowing easy comparison of relative times across multiple locations (and thus ideal for checking oout whether you have suggested an awkward time for some in your virtual team

  2. Lynda’s article was spot on, but more should be said about the impact of national cultures on global team interactions. National cultures vary in the way they approach decision making, leadership, time and deadlines, and in the way they communicate, to name just a few.
    Michael Schell
    CEO, RW-3 LLC

  3. Robyn Ciuro says:

    The time zone issue isn’t limited to virtual teams. I’m continually surprised by the teleconferencing and online coaching practitioners who offer their services on their websites or through their blogs which would require me to get up at 3 in the morning to participate. No matter how interested I am in what they have to offer, it’s not going to happen.

  4. Although time zones are often an obstacle, sometimes they are a real boon. Once you figure out a rhythm, you can hand work off across time zones so that, for example, one person or group “owns” a document during their workday and hand it off just in time for the next “day” on another side of the globe.
    Of course that isn’t a possibility until people become quite a bit more aware about time zones in the first place.

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