Google’s Real Problem – GTD?
gigaom.com
gigaom.com
I could have taken the article seriously if it had been written by a former employee, or by someone who actually interviewed people working at Google. But that way, the title seems to be just link bait. Nothing against link bait, but above all, the essential purpose of a title is to reflect the content, isn't it?
"My personal quick guess about a problem at Google: GTD" would have been a more honest title. It wouldn't be as sensational, but it would at least reflect the real substance of the article.
"So we’re adding a new process to our existing review system, in which every engineering project leader will be required to maintain a privacy design document for each initiative they are working on. This document will record how user data is handled and will be reviewed regularly by managers, as well as by an independent internal audit team."
This sounds awfully like the dreaded reviews (security, perf, globalization, internationalization, accessibility, etc.) at MSFT that gobbled up the time of PMs + devs. That's not to say that Google shouldn't have privacy design docs, just that they're an unfortunate consequence of scale.
Quote from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/creating-stronger-pri...
Even if GTD was a real issue with Google, how will the author know that they don't have much bigger issues?
Though, if this is a Google that can not Get Things Done I'd love (or possibly hate) to see one that can. Shutting down Wave, which was an interesting idea backed by what appeared to be horrifying code and a horrifying protocol, doesn't exactly strike me as proof of an inability to get things done. They did it, it "sucked" (for suitable values of sucked), and they got the decision to pull it down after a reasonable market testing period done, from what I saw.
This is usually only possible if the outsider obtained a lot of knowledge from the insiders, which is exactly what's missing in the article.
Also, while (sufficiently informed) outsiders may be able to spot problems, it is very improbable that they can spot "the biggest" problem, let alone reliably determining whether they did so. Claiming to be able to do that is boastful and nothing else.
Given time, Facebook will have this issue. Your company will have this issue. Beauracracy grows organically unless you keep paring it back, especially if you hire people who are afraid of taking risks, and many people are.
The problem is not associated with risk taking but its opposite - finishing things after the primary risk has been tackled. I have no idea what happens inside Google, but as a user of their products I am often shocked (given their resources) at the lack of polish, at the seeming unwillingness to tackle that infamous last 20% that takes the 80% of the time. I can only assume this is policy of some sort since it is so pervasive.
In my experience running software projects, getting things done (as in DONE DONE) is a skill that is loosely correlated with sheer smarts if at all. The best project managers/geek herders I know could never survive a technical interview with Google, but they have this ability to focus things so it all clicks together. I have always wondered whether Apple is the kind of company that seeks those kind of skills.
As an example, think of some hyper competent PAs - they might not have higher degrees in mathematics, but they have an uncanny ability to create order out of chaos. Good software project managers are like that - the eye of calm in the storm of smartness.
If you are the kind of person who is bothered on a personal level by unfinshed stuff (what some personality analysts call a "completer finisher"), I can imagine working at a place where the organization is always on the lookout for the next shiny could be very frustrating. That could be plausible reason for these departures, though that is only speculation.
Google seems to want "Plants", who are great people, but too many cooks spoil the broth.
Risk was possibly the wrong word, I meant it in the sense that people come to think that reviews, documents and meetings are the only way to keep the company 'safe'.
As a user of Google's services, I love 'em.
As a potential employee -- totally not interested and hard to see the attraction.
(Him: Wait, how will you swap those two entries? You can't just move them back and forth. Me: using the "swap" function that I described immediately after you described the problem?)