Scrum: QuickStart Guide - The Simplified Beginner's Guide To Scrum (Scrum, Scrum Master, Scrum Agile) by ClydeBank Business

Author:ClydeBank Business
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: ClydeBank Media LLC
Published: 2014-10-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7: Case Study 1 - Google

Introduction (Google)

Google, the multinational Internet services provider, has always strived to maintain a very “startup-like” culture. From their beginnings solely as a search engine to their current diverse product offering, the company has focused on keeping their engineering teams self-organizing as well as in direct contact with customers and stakeholders. This is embodied in Google’s practice of minimizing the number of standard processes throughout the company. This design is centered on the concept that each engineering team will identify what methods work best for its project, its team dynamic, and its engineering environment. Many projects were initiated without designated project managers, and this format of project autonomy has been very productive for Google.

Mark Striebeck of Google summarizes the enterprise’s adoption of Agile practices in his case study, “Shh! We are adding a process… (at Google).” The project is centered on a Google application entitled AdWords frontend (AWFE). Striebeck states that “AWFE is much more product management and release date-driven than other Google applications,” a fact that created difficulties for project teams using Google’s more traditional project-oriented structure. Further obstacles included the international nature of the team and the scope of the project; AWFE required 15-20 major ongoing projects and constant improvements from five worldwide offices.

These challenges and the business-oriented nature of the project developed a larger management team for the project. Managers found that a highly changing environment within the development process created significant delays due to integration and continuity across releases. Managers also found that low levels of visibility regarding the statuses and progress of project elements led to challenges and delays down the road.

Many contemporary companies are resistant to change within the ranks, and the startup nature of Google is certainly no exception. Many engineers involved in the project teams felt that added processes would encumber the lightweight methods in practice at Google and would distort the traditional development process.

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