IOD: Encouraging "Google Time" at Microsoft

You can't help but wonder what is actually accomplished during that 20% of time spent by each individual at google on a non-core job related activity.  Are these projects ever reviewed?  Have they ever led to anything you see? Or is it just a "coolness" factor and perk for working at a company now swimming in investor capitol?   When I was a test lead one of the biggest challenges was aligning peoples skills and interests with particular tasks so that they could feel successful. 

In the Developer Division we ask that everyone spend at least some time each month helping developers in the community. We try not to be too strict about specific time spent or what activities are endorsed. In recent reviews we've done of this practice it seems that the people that do participate end up spending anywhere from 1-2 days a month on their chooses community activities. Not quite 20% of their time, but maybe not yet enough to accomplish anything really spectacular on their own.  

This is just thinking out-loud, but I wonder what the response would be if we suggested this should be 20% of a persons time?  The time wouldn't have to be about helping customers directly per say, but their projects did have to be publicly detailed on their blogs or collaborative workspaces.

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 16, 2004
  This is a fairly common practice in the pharmaceutical industry that often attracts ex-professors to their ranks. They too allow up to 20% of a person's time to be spent on personal research projects. In the case of a mature discipline like organic chemistry this is not particularly difficult to justify; it would be much more challenging to manage non-pure research since MSFT is mostly a "D" R&D company.

• Anonymous
  November 16, 2004
  2 days a month is < 10%, 20% would be closer to 1 week/month.
  
  Personally, I can think of all kinds of neat things to "research" for 2 months (6-8 weeks). Where I work, something like this could be done in the "downtime" that surrounds each release (the few weeks before a release, the codebase is very stable, the few weeks after a release decisions about the next release have yet to be made).
  
  It would give more creative developers a sanctioned excuse to explore, and force the "just do what I'm told" people to think a little on their own.
  
  But I think in most companies, there is far too much "overhead" standing in the way of doing something like this.
  
  

• Anonymous
  November 16, 2004
  All the stuff on Google Labs is from the 20% personal projects. Orkut was also a personal project. So there are visible products coming out

• Anonymous
  November 16, 2004
  I think that entire Google time thread was stupid. If people are beginning to whine because it is taking too long to ship stuff like Whidbey, Longhorn and Yukon I basically see 3 options
  
  1. Work on your own project on the side
  2. Change team to a product unit that ships more frequently
  3. Leave the company and go work at Google if you have such a jonesing for their way of life
  
  I've evaluated (3), decided against it and done (1) and (2). I feel a lot better about my job because if it. You don't need Microsoft to pay you to work on your hobby on company time before you can feel fulfilled at your job. Heck, it isn't like everyone at Google is spending 20% of their time working on pet projects that they eventually turn into Google products...that is just a myth.
  
  If my pet project is learning yoga, is Microsoft going to allow me spend 20% of my time on it? If so how do you decide what 20% counts as meaningful 'research' .

• Anonymous
  November 16, 2004
  3M started "google time" back in the 1960s. Post-It Notes was the first product brought to market from this 20% non-job related creativity time.

• Anonymous
  November 16, 2004
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  November 16, 2004
  Isn't this why you've got Microsoft Research? :)

• Anonymous
  November 16, 2004
  "isn't this why you've got MS research". I agree that our billions spend on research each year should have a purpose, but there are a ton of ideas I know held by frontline employees that never really see the light of day because they aren't given the time to fully flush them out.

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  May 29, 2009
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  June 13, 2009
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  June 13, 2009
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