How do you make your team more efficient when employees are split between the US and in Europe ?

Question

At my current company we plan to hire employees in the US. The full team is currently based in Europe and I am looking for tips and tricks when the team is in different time zones, such as :

- how to run all hands meetings ?
- how to create link between teams ?
- which tools do you recommend ?

Thanks in advance !

Jim Morrison · Accepted Answer

When we started to spread out internationally (we're only a small team but across ~23h now) we were a bit disjointed because people we still working on "their own thing"

We've now got into a 3x week cycle, rotating our main sprint around our three core products...  We find really clear short sprints work well, where folks are running in relay ... so the team have to hand-off properly as the next team picks up the baton.

I've also found all-hands *super important*; we go in turns and sound off:

- stuff I learned this week
 - recent successes & challenges
 - ask for help with something
 - my KPI update (self-defined)

Feedback I've got is that folk love to hear and understand about other teams, help out in places outside their team etc.  Helps with cohesion & the cross-disciplinary helping-out keeps the WFH monotony at bay a bit.

Hope that helps @valentin_haarscher 🙌

Brittany Salas · Answer

Without going into too much detail....

Spending a couple hours with Zoom on in the background once a week. The goal is  not actively engaging in a planned meeting but rather do our own work and leaving the floor open to ad hoc questions and interruptions. Plus all the planned sprint and weekly updates in between.

Maxim Frostman · Answer

There are many videos on this topic available on Youtube. To my understanding, most of the issues can be easily overcome using modern technology. We use Trello+ our own time tracking software+ have Zoom meetings daily. However, the time difference between our team members' locations is no bigger that 4 hours.

Ilia Pikulev · Answer

Make video or audio calls at least once per two days - messages are dry, people sometimes interpret your thoughts differently when they see just letters. So, that is quite important to have a direct interaction with your colleagues/employees for crucial parts of the project.
For minor, routine parts of the project, it is always better to use asynchronous communication, so people are not feeling stressed about non-important things (until they get important at least). Just create a project in any project management tool and keep track of it (will require significant amount of time to track) :)

As for the tools, Teams and Trello are always good to start with.

As of our team, we are actually happy with using Coloban (Calls, Chats, Kanban, Eisenhower, Calendar). Sorry, yes, we are close to that project, but I couldn't resist telling about it :).

Damien Martin · Answer

Shufti Pro has offices in different regions too, so we had the same issue. However, we have decided a time that is not inconvenient for anyone. For instance, you can choose 11 am Europe time to be in touch with the US employees. I can help better if I know the US state you have the office in. 
Google Meets is the best tool for online meetings. We use it for all the meetings. 
I hope this helps. Cheers!

Valentin Haarscher · Answer

@dkaravias We indeed launched game nights at Cycle to create bonds in the team during this pandemic. We loved Among us and GarticPhone 👌 Any other suggestions ?

Jack Davis · Answer

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier suggested that you have some hours that overlap when everyone is online at the same time. This way everyone can talk if need at a certain time, with also allowing people extended chunk of time to focus without interruption as well.

Ravi Bajnath · Answer

Pay them more.

Dimitris Karavias · Answer

Do you really need all hands with everyone present or could you do an async format? 
Something like:
Main presentation
24 hours for questions in writing
Presentation answering questions
If any conversations need to be continued, use the tools you already use.
The best way to unite remote teams in my experience is games.
If you have offices, stock them up with Nintendo Wii
If not, plenty of browser-based options.

Valentin Haarscher · Answer

@slava_bobrov Thanks a lot Slava ! Fully aligned with what you wrote. In early stage projects, I sometimes feel like you dream of being in a stage where you have you north star KPI/metric but eventually things are changing so fast that you spend more time looking for the right metrics/targets than actually working towards them!

Valentin Haarscher · Answer

@jimbomorrison Awesome, thank you so much Jim ! At what time (and time zone) do you organise your all hands ?

Valentin Haarscher · Answer

@ilia_pikulev Thanks Ilia super helpful. Can you share Coloban's website ? I'd like to check it out

Nico Spijker · Answer

Switching your communication to asynchronous by default and synchronous when needed helps with that.

At Rock we are currently fully geographically dispersed, and we try to organize most of the workflow in clearly defined tasks/notes/files which are supported by an internal messaging system and a weekly meeting.

I think Rock  (https://rock.so/) might be a good match for you as it was created to simplify and better coordinate the workflow of remote teams. Rock combines messaging, tasks, notes, files and video-conferencing in one space so you dont have to go switching apps to find your workflow. It also lets you send unlimited messages and create unlimited spaces with whomever you want for free.

The app integrates with Drive and Zoom so 1. you dont have to go searching for relevant documents in your different spaces in your overall drive and 2. direct videoconferencing so if something cannot be resolved with tasks, notes and messages you can quickly discuss it in a synch meeting.

I think the open nature of the platform makes it easier to link teams as well, especially when more geographically distributed :) -- Any questions you can always reach out to me

Slava Bobrov · Answer

One thing that helps for sure it to define clear set of metrics/tasks/goas that must be completed in one week. Once the teams develop a habit of always achieving the metrics that they commit to, the teams start optimize for them and do everything to achieve them (this is not easy).

And the key thing here is that all the secondary issues, like time zone difference or someone took a day off, for all these issues the team comes up with organic solutions that fit in the work process. It happens because the team is focused on the primary goal/KPI and everything else becomes an optimization for it. I've seen teams that try to establish the process first without taking care of the primary goals and eventually they struggle with such approach.

As for the tools and team collaboration from my experience during the first days it is better to work  together as if you are in the same time zone (which initially requires a sacrifice like getting up early or staying late) and then naturally develop a solution that fits everyone by taking a step-by-step approach where tools get added once they are needed. In my case we we had a brief daily meeting at around 10am ET, which is 4pm in Europe. And for the other discussions we used slack

How do you make your team more efficient when employees are split between the US and in Europe ?

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