Mimeo Lounge

Agile Product Development and Google

Posted on October 22, 2007 at 9:03am, written by Jeff Grill, VP Marketing

It was interesting to read about Google’s approach to agile product development in the Sunday New York Times article titled “The Google Way: Give Engineers Room” by Bharat Mediratta; as told to Julie Bick.  One of the struggles in product management is the delicate balance between the need for detailed requirements and the desire of the organization to move quickly.  Provide too much definition and the project bogs down in paperwork; provide too little and the development team uses their point of view which is often different than the rest of the team.  Somewhere in between is the need to keep both the product management and development teams motivated.

Google has seemed to find an approach that harnesses the passion of developers and the need for multi-departmental input.  They allow all developers to spend 20% of their time on a project of their choosing.  They need to convince a team throughout the company to spend time on their idea and convince the organization to add it to the product roadmap.  My only reservation was the luxury that a Google might have with their large teams and financial resources vs. a smaller company where every development hour is precious.  However, my gut leans to the side of it being a great idea since teams are most efficient when highly motivated and a characteristic of knowledge work is the ability of the team to choose their own scope of work that meets corporate objectives.

Tags: agile product development, gharat mediratta, google, julie bick, new york times, product management, product roadmap