Posts Tagged ‘project management’

The Google Way: Give Engineers Room

Posted by John Hunter on October 23rd, 2007 | 1 Comment »

The Google Way: Give Engineers Room

Google engineers are encouraged to take 20 percent of their time to work on something company-related that interests them personally. This means that if you have a great idea, you always have time to run with it.
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These grouplets have practically no budget, and they have no decision-making authority. What they have is a bunch of people who are committed to an idea and willing to work to convince the rest of the company to adopt it.

Consider the collection of engineers who wanted to promote “agile programming” inside the company. Agile programming is a product development approach that incorporates feedback early and often, and was being done in a few scattered parts of the organization.

The Agile grouplet formed to try to take this idea and spread it throughout the organization. It did so by banding together and reaching out to as many groups as it could to teach the new process. It created “Agile Office Hours” when you could stop by and ask questions about the process. It handed out books and gave internal talks on the topic. It attended staff meetings and created the concept of the “Agile Safari,” in which you could volunteer to work for a time in groups that were using Agile, to see how it ticks.

Related: Google Software Engineering – Agile Software Development – Agile Management – Managing Innovation – Larry Page and Sergey Brin Webcast – Google: Ten Golden Rules

Filed under Work | Tags: , , , ,


Engineering with People in Mind

Posted by John Hunter on July 20th, 2007 | 2 Comments »

Change Management: Combining Management with Ancient Philosophy:

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is one of the rare Indian government undertakings that are completed on schedule and within budget.
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DMRC’s uniqueness lies in how it has managed “soft issues” related to the general public affected by it. To ease out traffic snarls and general chaos around construction sites on main roads, DMRC deployed special personnel to assist Delhi Police. Cars driving through muddy construction areas were treated to washes by DMRC personnel. Other similar initiatives showed DMRC’s commitment and built strong public opinion in favor of it. DMRC’s concern for the commuter can be gauged from the fact that even the elevators feature ‘sari’ meshes to stop the flowing robes from getting caught in the gap. And now that the Metro Rail is in operation, DMRC is training National Cadet Corp (NCC) students (NCC is similar to Boy Scouts) to teach travel etiquette to the infamously unruly Delhi public.

The man behind this is a 74-year old, yoga practicing civil engineer. E. Sreedharan is famous for building Konkan Railway, the biggest railway project since India’s independence. With the public sector’s reputation so tainted, Sreedharan has attained an iconic status and is one of India’s most respected personalities. And business management students as far away as Harvard are visiting India to study the secret of its success.

There is more to engineering than, for example, calculating that the design will work in practice and not fail under real world conditions. That is obviously very important. Additionally, successful engineers manage projects in a way that not only result in safe and efficient systems but also that make those that take into account the people that will be impacted by the systems (as the system is used and, as in this example, as the system is being created).

The ability of engineers to understand the mechanical, project management and financial realities is a big reason engineering is the leading field of study for S&P 500 CEO’s, in my opinion (add to those qualities leadership, vision and understanding the human impact of product features… and you have a great CEO candidate). The data shows that engineering (23% are engineering graduates, economics is next at 13%) is the leading field of study – the reason for why so many engineering graduates become CEO’s is what is my opinion. Engineers get a great start by having to find solutions that work in practice. Given those that want to move into leadership a great base from which to build – perhaps all the way into the CEO’s office.

Filed under Society, The Economy | Tags: , ,


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