Working with Teams in Different Countries and Cultures

Orginally Published in Medium.

With continually innovating and expanding technology, we have the capacity to work with teams on all ends of the earth who are just a video call away. The work situation is much different than working with in-house engineering and/or design teams. Spending time together is part of it, but so is working with someone who lives in a different country and is from a different culture. The following are my takeaways from working with product teams internationally. Please add additional suggestions in the comment section.

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.

You will not have the chance to run into your engineer in the kitchen or going for a drink of water. So use the time that you have with them wisely. I recommend Slack as a must because of the ease of use. Our days are overlapping, so I can message early in the morning or late in the day to hopefully get a response if I need an answer quick. Sharing files, creating channels with a different team and just seeing their status are all extremely valuable feature to help keep your conversations organized.

Video streaming another invaluable tool. Working with digital products you are going to be sharing screens about the website or app you are working on. But it also important to see the other person, their gestures, and movements to get the underlying tones of a conversation. Make sure the video streaming service you are using is well suited for whatever internet speeds the team is using. Google Hangouts and Zoom are two of my favorites.

We all use JIRA for a reason and know why it works. Because of the time differences, I turn on notifications for high and critical issues. This way I do not create a bottleneck for something that needs to be deployed quickly.

I rarely use email or other forms of communication with my team. I do not find it to be relevant anymore unless I am forwarding a customer email, but most likely enter it into JIRA.

Be flexible about the time differences.

One of the biggest challenges is going to be time. Working in this environment will push you out of working the regular 9–5 on a weekly basis. You will get some early morning messages or a JIRA notification when you are out the dinner. Make sure to set boundaries that only the most critical things are grabbing your attention.

Be flexible about meeting times. One team I worked with, we were able to split the time difference to meetings at night and two in the morning every week. We all thought this was a very fair outcome and I agree. Product and engineering are the base of any company so it is very important there is a mutual level of respect and understanding. I have worked with another team that prefers to do all of their calls after dinner, and that is perfectly fine with me as I am in the office at the time. Ask your team quarterly if they are comfortable with the meeting times and let them know you open for discussion.

Respect the culture

If you are working with a team internationally, life in their country may be much different than your life in the United States. They might practice a different religion you or have different beliefs about things happening around the world. The understanding here is not to engage in those conversations, but to do your research about where your teammates come from. This helps from planning purpose to know when their holidays are coming up, to earning respect to know their favorite soccer team won a big game.

Make the most of your meetings.

Always start with a warm introduction and try to learn something new about your teammates to start the call. But keep it light. Make sure you have a plan and have sent an agenda. The last thing anyone wants to do is a waste of time when they have woken up early or stayed up late to join the conversation. This goes for both sides. If you are an engineer and showing something from your local server, make sure it is ready to go. If you are a product manager or designer, make sure you have the screens up you will be referencing and are logged in. Nothing kills momentum more than waiting around for something to load on the screen.

Eliminate sarcasm.

Some of us at the office like to keep it light and crack a few jokes every once in a while. I myself tend to be a bit of a smartass outside of work. There is absolutely no place for that when working with teams internationally. I learned that many years ago. A team could take the direction of something you didn’t intend like, “If that doesn’t work we might as well delete the whole server.” Which is a bit of an extreme example. Regardless, the context will be taken in a different manner than expected and it is much more professional to stay clear.

Simple and precise.

There is a good chance you might have some of a language barrier when you are working with teams internationally. Members of the team may make different interpretations of a situation based on the style of English they have learned. I get excited very easily and it is a constant challenge with me, but slow down and be extremely precise with your words when you are talking about the product, the business case, or most topics you will be discussing. Slowly build an image of the point you are trying to convey. Take the confusion out of the situation by examining precise details.

The same goes for product development. Always bring your engineers in after you have validated the idea. Run the concept by them, and get any technical limitations. But when writing your stories to be extremely clear and precise. And if you don’t know something, don’t be afraid to ask. You are only a video call away.