What do you do if your IT team is spread across different time zones in remote work?

1. Clear team goals and KPIs are in place 2. Ways of working are defined together as a team and signed off on 3. Individual tasks are clearly laid out for each team member with a target end date 4. twice a week full team stand up should take place to feel connected - this may vary on timings to keep it fair across the timezones, however the rule is, no matter what you have got to make the stand up! 5. Encourage regular comms with team/leader/clients 6. Team should work on from a collaborative forum such as slack...with a governance in place to ensure urgent items are picked up 7. Everyone should always take comprehensive notes of all meetings, that are open to the team to review daily

My IT team is distributed across various time zones for remote work, it's vital to set up clear communication protocols and schedules that suit everyone's availability. Employ asynchronous communication tools and project management platforms to enable information sharing and collaboration. Foster autonomy and trust among team members, empowering them to manage their time efficiently while still achieving project goals and deadlines.

It helps ensure that important discussions, meetings, and collaborative tasks can be conducted efficiently without significant delays or disruptions. By proactively identifying and leveraging these overlapping periods, you can maximize productivity and cohesion within your geographically dispersed IT team.

Try to spend more time to understand your team members. Their preference and their view about working out of their normal working hours is the essence of why this question is often being asked. Some people like working after hours some is the opposite. Managing a remote team needs a unique sets of skills and experience. Try not too focus on results too early, it can only work on new people. Eventually their 'person' side kicks in but most time it is when issue has already occurred. Fostering teamwork, good relationship and understanding each other early will have a longer term benefit with the end goal increase productivity. And as much as technology make virtual meeting better, you can never replace a face-to-face meeting.

It's like playing a multiplayer video game where each member saves their progress, and when another member logs in, they pick up from where the last player left off and adjusted for their time zone. Just like in gaming, effective communication and coordination ensure everyone stays on track and progresses towards the shared goal.

ement platforms can help ensure that team members stay connected and informed regardless of their geographical locations. It's essential to establish protocols and guidelines for communication to maintain efficiency and clarity in remote work environments.

I firmly believe that clear communication is fundamental to building a strong team. It's crucial that everyone is well-informed about milestones, resources, goals, and other pertinent details. However, because team members may come from diverse disciplines, their communication styles may vary, leading to potential misunderstandings. In such cases, a moderator, often the manager, plays a vital role as a conduit, ensuring that each member's message is understood and facilitating clarification when necessary.

In my experience teams tend to favor a certain way and tool for communications. And that tends to work great if everyone is onboard. But when there is a mismatch between remote teams or unclarity around communication than I suggest to agree on a communication plan between the teams. Ask teams what information they need to do their jobs and start with structuring this information in a easy consumable and relevant manner. Avoid the tendency for over-communication.

Clear communication is key to keep team intact and to encourage teamwork for best output. Teams are composed of people with IQ and EQ (emotional) needs too. Choose what channel is best - voice call for personal feedback, instant messaging for quick info exchange, email to give summary of important info from a meeting. In Accenture we used to do conference calls and long-distance from Philippines to US clients, now we can communicate with anyone in the world with even sometimes free data directly from our mobile phones. Telegram, Whatsapp, Viber, Skype, FB messenger and Odoo Discuss are the apps we use in Elyon for our external clients various preferences and also for the internal Consultants of Elyon team.

This is nothing uncommon for example developing Teams spread across the world. Let the Team state their Team rules and preferences. Will early morning meetings/stand-up meetings be the best or what time would work best? Frequency and expectations will make the collaboration easier and more smoothly progress. Don’t forget to evaluate after given time, should anything change?

They provide a centralized platform for team members to track progress, share updates, and collaborate on tasks regardless of their locations. With real-time visibility into project status and task assignments, everyone can stay aligned and productive, even when working in different time zones.

There are so many great task management tools nowadays. Pick one which the teams like to use and support their ways of working. Invest in reporting. Creating the right metric so that teams can proudly show their progress and to highlight late delivery and blockers. Invest in task handover. I prefer a warm handover, so that ownership of the task is secured and rework minimized.

Many IT jobs can be done remotely, thank God there are so many tech tools now, and IT professionals can quickly adapt. In our company Elyon, we first started using Facebook's Workplace, then Google Workspace, as our company evolves, we have found other great ERP integrated Project Management tools too, such as Odoo. Elyon sees Odoo apps like Projects, Timesheets, Field Service and Helpdesk to be valuable tools, and they are all already integrated to each other too. Updates are real-time, anywhere anytime. Everyone can be aligned with their tasks status and collaborate across timezones well.

Effective task management becomes crucial when your team spans multiple time zones. Utilize project management tools that enable real-time updates, informing everyone of the project's progress. This allows team members to pick up tasks from others seamlessly. Assign tasks with clear deadlines, considerate of various time zones, and maintain flexibility in work hours, permitting team members to work during their peak productivity periods.

To ensure project success, it’s crucial to define detailed requirements, scope, and acceptance criteria for each team member. This involves transparency outlining the task’s deadlines, deliverables, and measurable success criteria. Simultaneously, establish a daily support procedure to prioritize timely issue resolution, accurate results, and continuous risk mitigation.

Always try to learn other cultures; the easiest example is to not contacting them during their national holiday. Know some basic " do and don'ts " related to others will also help. When we respect their cultures, it shows that we are willingly to build a trustworthy professional relationship. It will help to deliver our team goal if everyone respect each other.

Cultural sensitivity is essential in managing a diverse, remote IT team. It's important to acknowledge and respect your team members' different cultural backgrounds and working habits. This includes recognizing national holidays, understanding varied communication styles, and accommodating differing expectations of work-life balance. By fostering an inclusive environment, you boost team morale and enhance overall harmony and productivity.

Anyone need to improve himself for keep growing with the knowledge. Sometimes in the project any member need to extra time (out of work) for deep learning. This is use for a part of responsibility about how to achieve the target. And sometimes need to ask or discuss with anyone in the same Team to share their knowledge or skill. Usually the Junior ask to Senior who have more experiences. This process call Continuous Learning. Always grow day by day.

Trust is really important to motivate your team members. Train them enough, and let them explore on their own. Experiment giving small tasks first, then when you see them doing their best, begin entrusting them with bigger tasks. Most people perform better when they are trusted. Accountability will ensure the outputs will be produced. The sense of responsibility helps bring out the best in people. To the right people, this is not pressure, but a motivating force - bigger responsibilities communicate this: "You did well, and I know I can trust you with more, I believe in you. I will give you opportunities to grow into your full potential. I will support you in your career growth. I trust you." Then watch them shine! To God be the glory!

Very important is to stay close to each member by having a regular agenda where everyone is attending and contribuiting. Try to chose the best timezone to accomodate everyone , if not possible break it in 2 groups (at most) ... Then define the leaders you should have the 1:1 also on a regular basis. That will give the opportunity to go deep in certain points that are not easy to be shared in group

From the beginning someone is hired to be part of a project. They must be committed to the work received. When a team is formed, trust building will automatically be formed too. No matter who or what their background is. So each member must be open and honest in the team and committed to working together as a team to complete the project. Members also have to trust each other and there doesn't need to be any drama involved. In this way, trust building can be the basis for working on projects as a team.

If there is no trust in the team, management is greatly compromised. With this, the delivery and results will suffer. Using each one well in their roles and talents helps to increase the degree of confidence and autonomy of the team.

As a leader of a remote IT team, It is imperative that you find opportunities to get the team together in-person. Human in-person interaction however limited has tangible benefits such as increasing productivity, boosting morale, enhancing social, communication and interpersonal skills, developing a sense of community, etc. Allocate funds for inter-office travel in your yearly budget. Use travel as an incentive to recognize and reward employee contributions and be innovative by combining travel for your team members from different locations by attending industry events, conferences, training seminars, customer and vendor site visits. This way the costs can be better managed and even shared by vendors, customers, conference organizers.

Working in different time zone means we may work with teams from other countries. One thing to also consider is to check their local labor law/regulation. Some countries has very specific rules about working hours, or about sharing personal data, etc. Make sure we know it in advanced to avoid any unintentionally mistakes. Especially if you sometimes may need to have extra working hour, some countries will require union approval for extra working hour. Make sure you learn a bit about how labor regulation works in your team's country,

Conduct monthly meetings for new team and quarterly for existing teams to enable communication amongst members. Facilitate remote team building activities. Focus on sharing knowledge, skills development, technology updates, certifications, industry trends to up-skill the team. This group activity helps the team to overcome barriers and to understand new concepts, different culture, technology etc.