{"id":14588,"date":"2011-03-15T10:47:14","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T08:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=14588"},"modified":"2011-03-15T10:47:14","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T08:47:14","slug":"google-is-building-a-better-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/15\/google-is-building-a-better-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"Google is building a better boss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here is an interesting New York Times article<\/a> about Google’s Project Oxygen, which is, in\u00a0essence, an initiative by the company to improve management.<\/p>\n

In Project Oxygen, the statisticians gathered more than 10,000 observations about managers \u2014 across more than 100 variables, from various performance reviews, feedback surveys and other reports. Then they spent time coding the comments in order to look for patterns.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like in many other technical companies, team and project leaders are assigned from the best of technical people. \u00a0It turns out that being good at programming does not necessarily mean being good at managing people. \u00a0That’s something that some of us knew for years.<\/p>\n

For much of its 13-year history, particularly the early years, Google has taken a pretty simple approach to management: Leave people alone. Let the engineers do their stuff. If they become stuck, they\u2019ll ask their bosses, whose deep technical expertise propelled them into management in the first place.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Bock\u2019s group found that technical expertise \u2014 the ability, say, to write computer code in your sleep \u2014 ranked dead last among Google\u2019s big eight. What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees\u2019 lives and careers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But just knowing that technical skills aren’t at the top of the list for a manager is not enough. \u00a0One needs to know what is important. \u00a0And that’s what Project Oxygen is all about.<\/p>\n

Things like this make me appreciate and respect Google. \u00a0Even if they don’t publish the results of the studies and use it internally only. \u00a0One thing that should be kept in mind is that Google employs a lot of people. \u00a0And those people come and go. \u00a0So even if they get a glimpse of a better way while at Google, that knowledge will eventually get out, will get applied to other companies, and will make the (office) world a better place.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

Here is an interesting New York Times article about Google’s Project Oxygen, which is, in\u00a0essence, an initiative by the company to improve management. In Project Oxygen, the statisticians gathered more than 10,000 observations about managers \u2014 across more than 100 variables, from various performance reviews, feedback surveys and other reports. Then they spent time coding … Continue reading Google is building a better boss<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,62],"tags":[1968,2068,580,1041],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-14588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology","tag-business","tag-google","tag-management","tag-statistics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":27331,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/02\/11\/software-engineering-at-google\/","url_meta":{"origin":14588,"position":0},"title":"Software Engineering at Google","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"February 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Fergus Henderson, who has been a software engineer at Google for 10 years, published the PDF document\u00a0entitled \"Software Engineering at Google\", where he collects and describes key software engineering practices the company is using. It covers the following: software development - version control, build system, code review, testing, bug tracking,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27813,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/07\/29\/seven-reasons-it-projects-fail\/","url_meta":{"origin":14588,"position":1},"title":"Seven Reasons IT Projects Fail","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"July 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"While reading through \"Seven Reasons IT Projects Fail\", I came across an interesting statistic (source): By categorizing documented causes of IT project failure, a majority\u201454 percent\u2014are attributed to project management. Surprisingly to some, technical challenges are the least-cited factor at 3 percent. For me, this is just a confirmation of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13175,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/08\/09\/on-technology-revolution\/","url_meta":{"origin":14588,"position":2},"title":"On technology revolution","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"August 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, on technology revolution: \"There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003,\" Schmidt said, \"but that much information is now created every 2 days, and the pace is increasing...People aren't ready for the technology revolution that's going to happen\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48301,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2020\/04\/10\/a-practical-guide-to-writing-technical-specs\/","url_meta":{"origin":14588,"position":3},"title":"A practical guide to writing technical specs","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 10, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Writing technical specifications is difficult.\u00a0 Writing good technical specifications is even more so.\u00a0 Here's an excellent practical guide from StackOverflow on how to write technical specifications, which have everything needed, yet not being too excessive or vague. In the comments, there are a few additional suggestions and links to other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10946,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/02\/google-sites-another-tool-to-wait-for\/","url_meta":{"origin":14588,"position":4},"title":"Google Sites – another tool to wait for","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"December 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Some time ago Google acquired JotSpot - a wiki-like web service. There weren't much news about it since then though. It was obvious that JotSpot will join Google's office applications in one form or another. But details and time lines weren't clear. 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