Random thoughts on this one week anniversary in India.
I just posted a link to the Dilbert Blog: Petting the Cat. My eyes are still a little teary. Damn that was funny.
This morning was my first international teleconference between Bangalore, New York and LA. The topic isn’t important; the interesting part is the time of each call: our call, 9 am, NY 11.30pm, LA 8.30pm.
Wow, wicked hours, now imagine it’s a way of life. There appears to be only a few ways to solve this particular problem. Either participants learn to not sleep, sleep on cots in the office, the start of second shift executive works start becoming the norm or expand management to the other side of the planet for continuous work (you’ll be pleased to know that I have avoided 24/7 and all derivatives in this post).
Most public organisations (think CIA, CSI, Police, meter maids, etc) have a day shift and night shift because international terrorism, crime, and illegal parking don’t just occur during the day time in a particular area. Oh no, illegal parking happens all the time and so do other things.
Many places are starting to outsource evening work to other places essentially handing off projects globally (Mcafee) as the globe turns. But what about the managers who are coordinating these international activities? For now, the stock price of No-Doze goes through the roof.
I’m guessing either another layer of staffing will occur where more and more firms go 24 hours or some middleman outsourcing company fills the management role. Since the middleman scenario just ads another layer second and third shift professionals will most likely become the norm. The other idea is that total operations be handed off to companies on the other side of the planet?
That model is starting to be used but must require an extra-ordinary amount of coordination between staffs. Let’s say I am working on a new sales plan for the moon and the plan is half done and I hand off to our Antarctica office, how does one keep a consistent flow? May have to move the cloning project up on the to-do list….
