So here's a question for potential HN entrepreneurs:
If your company got as big as Microsoft or Google, would you split it up, spinning off subdivisions as separate companies?
And (in the case of MSFT/Google) why haven't they done that?
Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
61–70 of 163 posts
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#62This got me thinking about role of managers in a modern org (to simplify things let's say it's a Tech company). It certainly needs a CEO/Visionary, it most likely needs HR and front/back office folks, it certainly needs PR and marketing people. But in a world where people communicate rarely in person, have their own management and economics 101 abilities, are smart enough to not work against their own interests (and…
I think many (middle) managers are afraid of Scrum and other agile development because their role is sidelined. As "individual contributors", engineers are generating actual business value. Engineers can self-organize in "quasi-communist" Scrum teams (as they own the means of production ;) and collaborate with product management who work with customers to derive and prioritize product requirements. In this scenario,…
I've helped organizations transition from waterfall to agile, and there was absolutely no decrease in the workload for management.
You still need some form of functional management to get the right staff, make sure they have what they need to be able to do their jobs, and deal with day to day issues. This might sound trivial, but it really isn't, and somebody who does this job well will enable a lot more success than somebody who treats it as a minor task.
And you also still need some form of product and project management to ensure that the work being done is aligned with strategy, marketing, sales, finance, etc, and to serve as an interface with those groups. Failure to do this effectively creates massive inefficiencies.
As such, I really don't think any moderately intelligent competent manager is at all concerned by Scrum, Kanban, XP, TDD, Lean, or any other Agile practice.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
You point to recent Google failures, but isn't their culture of allowing (even high profile) failures not only to get implemented, but then to get shut down part of why Google's successful? Which (the culture of allowing failure) seems like an engineering approach, and not a managerial (which to me has always struck me as fear-of-failure/CYA) one.
The question is whether those flops should have ever happened. I admire Google that they will kill unsuccessful products, but I question how well they understand the market when they have so many products to kill.
most companies fail, even the ones run by those who "understand the market" (if that phrase has any meaning outside of speaking completely in hindsight).
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#64Can someone who works at Google chime in with what the organizational temperature is like at Google? Does this whole 'party time's over for the managers' thing we're hearing about have any real weight to it?
I'd like to ditto this; the linked article is very speculative, and without a G-employee response, it seems rather foolhardy to extend said speculation.
agreed, especially in light of the stories we just heard about technical skills being valued less in managers there. I think this is someone just coming up with a nice narrative.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
But in a world where people ..., have their own management and economics 101 abilities, are smart enough to not work against their own interests (and look after the org's interests) - what's the role of the future manager? I don't know if there's as many people who have these abilities as you think there are.
Likely not but it still makes sense to give a chance to all the few talented people however many there are to actually create something instead of manage other less talented souls. Better for productivity and happiness IMHO!
Large corps are hardly run for employee productivity or happiness. They are run to maximize short term personal wealth of managers, and (less importantly) shareholders.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
The goal of management is essentially the same as the goal for any kind of political structure: remove issues which couldn't have been dealt with in a cheaper way.
And self-preservation of the management political class. How often does a corporate reorg reduce the number of managers?
Layoffs are routinely used as an opportunity to flatten organizations by removing layers of management.
I don't think I've ever seen a corporate reorg where middle management wasn't amongst the hardest hit groups. They're expensive, and you can usually fire a huge swath them without thinking, tell the remaining ones to start working late and limp along until times get better.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question is whether those flops should have ever happened. I admire Google that they will kill unsuccessful products, but I question how well they understand the market when they have so many products to kill.
Lots of failures is "working as intended". The only way to understand the market is to try out lots of things and see how the market reacts. Remember, the point of innovation is to solve unmet consumer needs - if people understood them, they wouldn't be unmet.
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Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#68This got me thinking about role of managers in a modern org (to simplify things let's say it's a Tech company). It certainly needs a CEO/Visionary, it most likely needs HR and front/back office folks, it certainly needs PR and marketing people. But in a world where people communicate rarely in person, have their own management and economics 101 abilities, are smart enough to not work against their own interests (and…
Microsoft has done this all along. Managers are programmers, they divide their time between programming and managing. The feeling within Microsoft, was how can someone who is not a programmer, manage programmers?
And look how well it's worked for them ...
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#69This got me thinking about role of managers in a modern org (to simplify things let's say it's a Tech company). It certainly needs a CEO/Visionary, it most likely needs HR and front/back office folks, it certainly needs PR and marketing people. But in a world where people communicate rarely in person, have their own management and economics 101 abilities, are smart enough to not work against their own interests (and…
I think many (middle) managers are afraid of Scrum and other agile development because their role is sidelined. As "individual contributors", engineers are generating actual business value. Engineers can self-organize in "quasi-communist" Scrum teams (as they own the means of production ;) and collaborate with product management who work with customers to derive and prioritize product requirements. In this scenario,…
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Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#70I question the title. It doesn't sound like engineers are in charge, instead, it sounds like smaller operating units will be in charge. That is a very different thing from having the inmates running the asylum. I have yet to see a large company that successfully treats software as a creative endeavor instead of a production line that still manages to be able to focus on solving customer problems. I really hope that L…
Whomever figures out how build a company with the technical prowess and product aptitude of Google and have a comparative level of custom service will have created something truly great
This sounds to me like a Home Depot -> Lowe's relationship.
I guess you'd have to master "being Google" first, so since G's business model is much much less settled than Home Depot's it will probably be a while. After all, there's still no "Fry's with good service," so maybe it's the B2C tech industry itself that precludes (good) customer service in general.
This is complicated by the existence of customer-focussed companies/sites like 37Signals and Craigslist, so maybe the difference is that customer service has to be a charter goal of the company in order for them to be any good at it. Just spitballin'.