Today, I was sitting in my dorm room reviewing some of the work my friend has finished over night on an online project and an intriguing thought surfaced.At this point in record [January 21st, 2011], my friend is currently in Vietnam, near Ho Chi Minh City. He's been visiting his family for a few weeks since December but we didn't let that stop us from working on our project. I would eventually find that our loathed separation actually helped us progress significantly faster than if we have had worked in the same location. That is, speaking for the particular phase the project is currently in which requires long hours of individual work. And large credit goes to the miracle of the internet which allowed us to collaborate while at opposite ends of the Earth. Here's how:
I am currently set in Eastern Standard Time, exactly 12 hours behind my friend in Vietnam. What this means is by the time I go to bed at night, he wakes up to start the morning and vice versa. We naturally took advantage of this obstacle by trading off daily assignments while the other slept. Thus the project was being worked on non-stop with no time wasted. In addition, we also frequently had about 2-5 hour overlaps where we were both awake, depending on when we decided to sleep or wake in suit of the project's needs. However, being both awake for these brief overlaps offered us the perfect opportunities to brief each other on what was accomplished that day and what tasks were next in line. So as my friend went to bed for his well-deserved rest, I was fully rested to pick up his work. By night, I would finalize my tasks while he woke for the next morning in Vietnam and we'd again, trade the baton.
At the time, I didn't realize how awesome this system was. What we had unknowingly created was a considerably effective tag-team effort despite our obnoxiously remote locations. Our project was being worked on 24/7 and we never lost any sleep over it; that is, other than the days we intended to stay up late to continue working. All in which, the malevolent grave-shifts were never necessary. In prospect, I thought it would be pretty rad if this system was applied to how some companies operated in the future to maximize productivity without compensating or interfering with an individual's natural day-night circadian rhythm.
This tag-team system would work best in projects that are transparent in nature because most business operations require physical human presence. Rather, this system could be most applicable for projects that involved, for example, software development, architectural designing or in operating a 24/7 customer service line. As well, this system's not a stretch because companies like Cisco are already beginning to develop communication products that allow people from different parts of the world to collaborate seamlessly on projects through virtual technology.
It can easily be expected that in the future, our collaboration tools will be significantly more advanced in allowing people around the world to work together, seamlessly. And if a company had multiple headquarters in different areas of the Earth, this would allow efforts over one project to continue around the clock. All in the while, a tag-team on other side of the world would be readily available to carry on the efforts as the other slept.
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