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Ya, but one can hope they'd think in terms of quotas [e.g. You have XXXX of machine time and/or a $$$ budget of XXXXX to test ideas] rather than require committ

Ya, but one can hope they'd think in terms of quotas [e.g. You have XXXX of machine time and/or a $$$ budget of XXXXX to test ideas] rather than require committee meetings.

nostrademons 12y ago
They require the committee meetings to set the quotas. Quotas suffer from the standard budgeting problem: everybody inflates their needs and hoards resources so that if they need extra in the future, they don't have to go through the budgeting process again. As a result, when a new project comes along that's not just an off-shoot of an existing high-priority project, they find that they're starved out of quota. They don't have an existing quota because the project previously didn't exist, and then when they go to get some, they find that all machines are currently allocated because everybody else overbid to secure room for expansion. Google was rolling out a fix for this process when I left them, but I'm not sure if I can share the details on it.
- opendais 12y ago
  Fair enough, I don't work for Google so I have no clue how it works there. :) I work at a place small enough where the budgeting process is for IT as a whole and we each have our corner to play in of fixed size.
- narrator 12y ago
  I know some bigger companies like HP make sure every department bills every other department in order to make sure that you don't get problems like you would in any centrally planned economy without a price mechanism.
  - Scuds 12y ago
    Microsoft works in a similar way, so it's easy to hire vendors. But if you don't have enough internal customers, you might have budget shortfalls, so guess what happens for vendors.
- Estragon 12y ago
  > Google was rolling out a fix for this process This sounds fascinating. Off the top of my head, the only fix I can imagine is to punish people for overestimates, but that sounds harmful in other ways.

Ya, but one can hope they'd think in terms of quotas [e.g. You have XXXX of machine time and/or a $$$ budget of XXXXX to test ideas] rather than require committee meetings.

nostrademons 12y ago

They require the committee meetings to set the quotas. Quotas suffer from the standard budgeting problem: everybody inflates their needs and hoards resources so that if they need extra in the future, they don't have to go through the budgeting process again. As a result, when a new project comes along that's not just an off-shoot of an existing high-priority project, they find that they're starved out of quota. They don't have an existing quota because the project previously didn't exist, and then when they go to get some, they find that all machines are currently allocated because everybody else overbid to secure room for expansion. Google was rolling out a fix for this process when I left them, but I'm not sure if I can share the details on it.

opendais 12y ago
Fair enough, I don't work for Google so I have no clue how it works there. :) I work at a place small enough where the budgeting process is for IT as a whole and we each have our corner to play in of fixed size.
narrator 12y ago
I know some bigger companies like HP make sure every department bills every other department in order to make sure that you don't get problems like you would in any centrally planned economy without a price mechanism.
- Scuds 12y ago
  Microsoft works in a similar way, so it's easy to hire vendors. But if you don't have enough internal customers, you might have budget shortfalls, so guess what happens for vendors.
Estragon 12y ago
> Google was rolling out a fix for this process This sounds fascinating. Off the top of my head, the only fix I can imagine is to punish people for overestimates, but that sounds harmful in other ways.