

Ask HN: We're spliting our team. Any advice? - mackwic

Hi HN !<p>We had the chance to be accepted in a foreign incubator, but we can&#x27;t all move there, we have to split the team.<p>As it will be a transcontinental split, with 6 hours of time difference, some things we took for granted will now become complicated.<p>How can we prepare best ? Do you have any experience&#x2F;advices to share ?<p>Also, we are quite concerned by security issues. Any recommendations here will be also welcome.
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davismwfl
Congrats, awesome and scary all at the same time.

From having worked with distributed teams for quite a long time, including
major time differences (11.5hrs) here are my suggestions.

1) If you have the ability switch your working day to match, sometimes this is
doable for a short time, other times it isn't because of clients, calls etc.
But in the end, it is one of the "easiest" ways.

2) No matter what, make sure you overlap schedules by 3 hours or so with at
least 1 person on each side that has broad knowledge and capabilities.

3) I know this seems obvious, but agree before hand that either side will wake
up the other only if absolutely necessary. It seems obvious but when you have
made multiple calls back to back over a couple of days waking someone, having
discussed it ahead of time helps keep cooler heads.

4) Communicate everything in person before the team leaves, even stuff that
you think is too simple/stupid to bring up or mention. It is amazing how doing
this really clears up everyones view. I would also communicate every persons
specific area of responsibility, not that you won't collaborate or have
everyone chip in, but if you have a defined area people seem to feel
comfortable knowing who has what and it doesn't create the situation where
I'll just do X because I don't know who is taking care of it and I can't call
Susie cause she is sleeping etc.

5) Have an end of day status email from each team.

6) During the time overlap period, get on Skype or some sort of face-to-face
communication, even if it is just to bullshit or give someone shit for fun.
This isn't critical but I found for teams that were originally all together
and start working apart it helps keep everyone connected personally too. To
your point this helps in the things you take for granted. Of course, some of
this depends on how long you all have been together and how long you all have
known each other.

For security, that is kind of broad, not sure what you are worried about
securing. If the team needs access to things back in the home
office/datacenter then setting up a simple VPN is probably the best & most
secure answer. Documents that you have to send back and forth, email is likely
fine for 99% of things, or use a drop folder through the VPN.

~~~
mackwic
Thank you for your kind and complete answer. Awesome and scary is exactly what
we're feeling now. The end-of-day status email is a really nice advice.

~~~
davismwfl
Your welcome and good luck!

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taprun
Read up on Conway's Law[0], and think about dividing your project into two
semi-independent portions (one for each side of the team.) I worked at a
company with two locations in different time zones and keeping everyone
informed of everything would have been a nightmare.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law)

