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Torchpassing

I was working on the first part of the year on a project wherein the five-person team, there were members from Portugal and the US east coast.

Since we were on the starting time zone, the workday went as follows: We started to work here in Finland, where the US left off. They left a descriptive torch pass message on what they were doing, and we continued from there. At some point in the afternoon, the Portuguese joined, and we worked together. Our day ended in the daily, which was pretty much our torch pass to the US part of the team.

This resulted in pretty much 16-hour work cycles, or in other words, two shifts. It was very efficient for a couple of reasons

  • Strong team. We were all capable of independent work and made decisions on the fly.
  • Direction. We did not have detailed stories or Jira tickets, but the course was clear
  • Strong PO and scrum master. They protected us, and we did not waste any time in pointless meetings.



5/5 would recommend working in a team split across the globe. The requirements to make it are as stated above. On an individual developer level, aim to write explicit messages on your thought process to Slack and especially spend time thinking through the torch passing notes. List all your thoughts and crazy ideas you had and see if the next person in his/her shift will jump on it.
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