✦Remote work · 12 records · for a shared workspaceWork across time zones

A spread team has a small amount of shared waking time and usually wastes it on things that could have been written. This measures the actual overlap, decides what it is reserved for, and moves everything else off it.

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✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

A spread team that is not exhausted Month 3

The overlap protected, everything else written.

Measure the overlap Week 4

Then decide what it is reserved for.

  • Write down everybody's actual working hoursDo firstDay 5
  • Find the real overlap and put it in one placeDo firstDay 12
  • Decide what may and may not be scheduled in itDo firstWeek 4

Hand over in writing Month 3

So the gap is a feature rather than a delay.

  • Agree the end-of-day handover formatDo firstWeek 5
  • Rotate the inconvenient meeting, and write down that it rotatesWeek 7
  • Review at the quarterMonth 2

Routines

  • End-of-day handoverdaily
  • Check nothing is stuck waitingweekly
✦ It comes with a note

Protect the overlap

Two hours of genuine overlap is plenty if it is spent on things that need a conversation, and useless if spent on updates somebody could have read.\n\nA standing arrangement where the same region is always awake at an unreasonable hour is a resignation waiting to happen, and it is almost never anybody's explicit decision.

✦ Questions

Work across time zones, answered.

Protect what exists and hand over in writing. Two hours of genuine overlap is plenty if it is spent on the things that need a conversation, and useless if it is spent on updates somebody could have read.
Rotate it, and write down that you are rotating it. A standing arrangement where the same region is always awake at an unreasonable hour is a resignation waiting to happen, and it is almost never anybody's explicit decision.
Written, at the end of a working day rather than the start of the next. The plan makes it a routine, because a handover that depends on remembering is one that stops the first busy week.
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