My capstone team is spread across 4 countries. I'm in the US. One member is in India. One in Brazil. One in Germany. We've never met in person. Probably never will. 
Our meetings are at 2 AM for someone, 5 AM for someone else, 9 PM for the lucky ones. Someone is always exhausted. Someone is always eating dinner. Someone is always just waking up and not fully functional.
The project itself is fine. We're all competent. We know our stuff. But coordinating is a nightmare. A simple decision takes 3 days because by the time everyone responds, it's a whole cycle. I sent a message yesterday. Got replies from India immediately (their morning), Brazil 6 hours later (their morning), Germany 8 hours later (their afternoon), and I woke up to all of them this morning. By then, the conversation had moved on and I was already behind.
The weird part is that we actually work well together when we're all awake at the same time. Which is basically never. Any other global teams out there? How do you manage the time zone chaos? How do you make decisions without real-time conversation? I need tips from people who've made this work.
Our meetings are at 2 AM for someone, 5 AM for someone else, 9 PM for the lucky ones. Someone is always exhausted. Someone is always eating dinner. Someone is always just waking up and not fully functional.
The project itself is fine. We're all competent. We know our stuff. But coordinating is a nightmare. A simple decision takes 3 days because by the time everyone responds, it's a whole cycle. I sent a message yesterday. Got replies from India immediately (their morning), Brazil 6 hours later (their morning), Germany 8 hours later (their afternoon), and I woke up to all of them this morning. By then, the conversation had moved on and I was already behind.
The weird part is that we actually work well together when we're all awake at the same time. Which is basically never. Any other global teams out there? How do you manage the time zone chaos? How do you make decisions without real-time conversation? I need tips from people who've made this work.