Working With an International Design & Development Team

I have a great memory for faces. Yet, I’ve worked on projects with clients and team members that I couldn’t point out in an empty restaurant. It’s not that I’m going senile; I’ve never seen their faces.  I’m a web designer and, like many web designers, the people I work with are frequently scattered all over the country.  However, this style of working didn’t fully prepare me for working with a development team in Chennai, India.

Impact on design

One of the scariest prospects as a web designer is unleashing my designs and letting them roam in the wilderness.  What can I say?  I’m protective.  However, sharing designs is one of the most important things to do early and often.  It helps with catching blind spots, eliminating points of friction and making collaboration possible for better solutions.

With a team working in the same office I can give sneak previews of the designs while I provide a guided –ahem, selective– tour.  I can field questions as they arise.  I’m in control.

When working with co-workers in Chennai there’s no escaping handing over all the designs before the explanations begin. As scary as it can be, it’s an invaluable way to get feedback from the perspective of someone seeing the work for the first time – just like a website visitor.

Improved efficiency and turn-around time

I’ll never forget the first time I handed over a set of web page designs at 4PM on a Wednesday to my colleague in Chennai and returned Thursday at 7AM to a largely complete website.  I could pick up right where I left off without missing a beat.  I didn’t need to switch projects for a couple days and lose my momentum.  It doesn’t always work this way, but when it does it leads to better focus, attention to detail and faster turn-around times for clients.

Meetings and work must be productive

A big advantage of only having a couple hours when my schedule overlaps with my colleagues in India is that I don’t find myself in drawn-out meetings.  Discussing projects necessarily becomes brief.

Also, when the work-flow of a project is continuously cycled between design and development it’s important to always make progress in each step of the cycle.  Three quarters of a design and a lot of hand waving doesn’t cut it over a long distance video conference.  If I hand over half-baked ideas at the end of the day, I could waste a day of development before I return in the morning.

It’s fun

Aside from the professional advantages of working with a team overseas it’s also a lot of fun.  How else would I have learned that a typical coffee thermos in the U.S. would be considered super-sized in other parts of the world?  How did I miss the bowing emoticon in Skype?  As a kid from Kentucky I never would have guessed that I’d be working with a team on the other side of the world each day.