6 ms·

Google’s Real Problem – GTD?

42 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

Dylanlacey 16y ago
I think inertia is a problem that all organisations face, eventually. It's really hard work to keep a company flexible, professional and profitable as it grows. 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.
- frossie 16y ago
  I don't think that is what the OP is saying. 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.
  - robryan 16y ago
    I think it's down to designing an interview process that minimizes the chance of bad hires which has been written about before. The qualities you mention and more subjective and thus there is more chance someone hired based on those qualities could be a bad hire.
    - frossie 16y ago
      I agree that it is hellishly difficult to hire for that kind of GTD ability. However I put it to you that if you have 25,000 employees, you must have fluked some of these personality types even with just technical interviews. Ergo if these people are not being leveraged, it says that your culture does not value those skills, and that you have some very frustrated people.
  - wisty 16y ago
    Belbin's theory of Team Roles (which is one of the few lenses that doesn't strike me as complete BS) breaks people in to a number of categories: Plants (idea's people), Resource Investigators (starters), Co-ordinators (competent PA), Shapers (classical good non-technical PMs who take the project through from soup to nuts), Monitor Evaluators (critics, QA folk), Teamworkers (the quite guy who sorts out fights), Implementers (Intrepreneurs, who set up the bug tracking system that everyone agrees is a good idea), Completer Finishers (perfectionists), and Specialists (what tell you that they read an article 20 years ago that showed how to do it better in 3 lines of code). Google seems to want "Plants", who are great people, but too many cooks spoil the broth.
  - Dylanlacey 16y ago
    Yes, I get what you're saying. 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'.
vog 16y ago
I find it always somewhat odd when a person with only superficial knowledge about a topic (e.g. "Google", "Apple" etc) claims to be able to spot their "Real Problem" or their "Biggest Issue". While the article might be a well-reasoned guess, it is still just a guess, based on a very small number of facts. 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.
- 2arrs2ells 16y ago
  Supporting evidence for the author's thesis: "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-privacy-controls.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/creating-stronger-pri...
  - vog 16y ago
    In how far does this affect the criticism? Even if GTD was a real issue with Google, how will the author know that they don't have much bigger issues?
- jerf 16y ago
  It is not unheard of for an outsider to clearly see the structural problems that an insider can not. 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.
mkramlich 16y ago
I think Google still attracts "algorithms & textbooks" sorts of software engineers. I don't see how it would be as attractive to the kinds of engineers that want to create products and businesses, and have a lot of power and control and freedom over what they're doing. I keep hearing about how one of the attractions of working for Google is knowing that your code will be used by millions of people, and run on thousands of servers, etc. You know what? I could give a shit. In reality, you will most likely only be writing a very small portion of the system the endusers will interact with. I'd rather write the entire system. And would you care inherently about how many machines it will run on? Personally I care more about creating lots of cool products that real people use, that make me money (ideally, a ton of money), and honestly, I don't really care whether it's running on millions of servers or merely a single or a dozen machines. Whatever. I also don't necessarily care about working with other "smart" people, at least as Google defines them. I do care a heck of a lot more about making new stuff, and learning new stuff, and getting to apply it, especially closer to the bigger picture end of the spectrum, and the product or business level of abstraction. As a user of Google's services, I love 'em. As a potential employee -- totally not interested and hard to see the attraction.
- grigy 16y ago
  Well said! I have exactly the same feelings.
- allenp 16y ago
  Don't be so eager to give up on working with "smart" people - it sure beats alternative!
  - Tamerlin 16y ago
    That was why my phone interview with Google turned me off to it... the interviewer and the recruiter had different DAYS on their schedules to talk to me, and the interviewer proved to be... well, not exactly the sharpest tack in the box. Or he wasn't paying attention, because he asked me questions that I had already provided answers to... (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?)
krschultz 16y ago
As an outside observer Google appears to slow down on the development of new projects very noticeably. Why hasn't Google Docs been evolving at the rate a company with the resources of Google can afford?
- eru 16y ago
  When have great resources ever helped rapid evolution in computing?
adolph 16y ago
Misleading title: GTD generally refers to a productivity management system; the article doesn't actually refer to the system in any way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
- avk 16y ago
  Thank you. I was hoping someone would bring attention to this. Complete misuse of "GTD."

42 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

I think inertia is a problem that all organisations face, eventually. It's really hard work to keep a company flexible, professional and profitable as it grows. 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.

frossie 16y ago
I don't think that is what the OP is saying. 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.
- robryan 16y ago
  I think it's down to designing an interview process that minimizes the chance of bad hires which has been written about before. The qualities you mention and more subjective and thus there is more chance someone hired based on those qualities could be a bad hire.
  - frossie 16y ago
    I agree that it is hellishly difficult to hire for that kind of GTD ability. However I put it to you that if you have 25,000 employees, you must have fluked some of these personality types even with just technical interviews. Ergo if these people are not being leveraged, it says that your culture does not value those skills, and that you have some very frustrated people.
- wisty 16y ago
  Belbin's theory of Team Roles (which is one of the few lenses that doesn't strike me as complete BS) breaks people in to a number of categories: Plants (idea's people), Resource Investigators (starters), Co-ordinators (competent PA), Shapers (classical good non-technical PMs who take the project through from soup to nuts), Monitor Evaluators (critics, QA folk), Teamworkers (the quite guy who sorts out fights), Implementers (Intrepreneurs, who set up the bug tracking system that everyone agrees is a good idea), Completer Finishers (perfectionists), and Specialists (what tell you that they read an article 20 years ago that showed how to do it better in 3 lines of code). Google seems to want "Plants", who are great people, but too many cooks spoil the broth.
- Dylanlacey 16y ago
  Yes, I get what you're saying. 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'.

vog 16y ago

I find it always somewhat odd when a person with only superficial knowledge about a topic (e.g. "Google", "Apple" etc) claims to be able to spot their "Real Problem" or their "Biggest Issue". While the article might be a well-reasoned guess, it is still just a guess, based on a very small number of facts. 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.

2arrs2ells 16y ago
Supporting evidence for the author's thesis: "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-privacy-controls.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/creating-stronger-pri...
- vog 16y ago
  In how far does this affect the criticism? Even if GTD was a real issue with Google, how will the author know that they don't have much bigger issues?
jerf 16y ago
It is not unheard of for an outsider to clearly see the structural problems that an insider can not. 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.

mkramlich 16y ago

I think Google still attracts "algorithms & textbooks" sorts of software engineers. I don't see how it would be as attractive to the kinds of engineers that want to create products and businesses, and have a lot of power and control and freedom over what they're doing. I keep hearing about how one of the attractions of working for Google is knowing that your code will be used by millions of people, and run on thousands of servers, etc. You know what? I could give a shit. In reality, you will most likely only be writing a very small portion of the system the endusers will interact with. I'd rather write the entire system. And would you care inherently about how many machines it will run on? Personally I care more about creating lots of cool products that real people use, that make me money (ideally, a ton of money), and honestly, I don't really care whether it's running on millions of servers or merely a single or a dozen machines. Whatever. I also don't necessarily care about working with other "smart" people, at least as Google defines them. I do care a heck of a lot more about making new stuff, and learning new stuff, and getting to apply it, especially closer to the bigger picture end of the spectrum, and the product or business level of abstraction. As a user of Google's services, I love 'em. As a potential employee -- totally not interested and hard to see the attraction.

grigy 16y ago
Well said! I have exactly the same feelings.
allenp 16y ago
Don't be so eager to give up on working with "smart" people - it sure beats alternative!
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  That was why my phone interview with Google turned me off to it... the interviewer and the recruiter had different DAYS on their schedules to talk to me, and the interviewer proved to be... well, not exactly the sharpest tack in the box. Or he wasn't paying attention, because he asked me questions that I had already provided answers to... (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?)

krschultz 16y ago

As an outside observer Google appears to slow down on the development of new projects very noticeably. Why hasn't Google Docs been evolving at the rate a company with the resources of Google can afford?

eru 16y ago
When have great resources ever helped rapid evolution in computing?

adolph 16y ago

Misleading title: GTD generally refers to a productivity management system; the article doesn't actually refer to the system in any way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

avk 16y ago
Thank you. I was hoping someone would bring attention to this. Complete misuse of "GTD."