Google-y*

On entering the 24-hour Googleplex located in Mountain View, California, you feel that you are walking through a new-age college campus rather than the corporate office of a billion-dollar business. The interconnected low-rise buildings with colorful, glass-encased offices feature upscale trappings-free gourmet meals three times a day, free use of an outdoor wave pool, indoor gym and large child care facility, private shuttle bus service to and from San Francisco and other residential areas-that are the envy of workers across the Bay Area. These perks and others reflect Google's culture of keeping people happy and thinking in unconventional ways.

The importance of corporate culture is no more evident than in the fact that the head of Human Resources, Stacy Savides Sullivan, also has the title of chief culture officer. Her task is to try to preserve the innovative culture of a start-up as Google quickly evolves into a mammoth international corporation. Sullivan characterizes Google culture as "team-oriented, very collaborative and encouraging people to think nontraditionally, different from where they ever worked before-work with integrity and for the good of the company and for the good of the world, which is tied to our overall mission of making information accessible to the world." Google goes to great lengths to screen new employees to make sure not only that they have outstanding technical capabilities but also that they are going to fit Google's culture. Sullivan goes on to define a Google-y employee as somebody who is "flexible, adaptable, and not focusing on titles and hierarchy, and just gets stuff done."

Google's culture is rich with customs and traditions not found in corporate America. For example, project teams typically have daily

"stand-up" meetings seven minutes after the hour. Why seven minutes after the hour? Because Google co-founder Sergey Brin once estimated that it took seven minutes to walk across the Google campus. Everybody stands to make sure no one gets too comfortable and no time is wasted during the rapid-fire update. As one manager noted, "The whole concept of the stand-up is to talk through what everyone's doing, so if someone is working on what you're working on, you can discover and collaborate not duplicate."

Another custom is "dogfooding." This is when a project team releases the functional prototype of a future product to Google employees for them to test drive. There is a strong norm within Google to test new products and provide feedback to the developers. The project team receives feedback from thousands of Google-ys. The internal focus group can log bugs or simply comment on design or functionality. Fellow Google-ys do not hold back on their feedback and are quick to point out things they don't like. This often leads to significant product improvements.

Please Answe below questions:How important do you think the perks Google employees receive are for maintaining the culture of Google? How does the custom of "dogfooding" contribute to the culture at Google? (course - Porject Management )

Please Answe below questions:How important do you think the perks Google employees receive are for maintaining the culture of Google? How does the custom of "dogfooding" contribute to the culture at Google? (course - Porject Management )

How important do you think the perks Google employees receive are for maintaining the culture of Google?

How does the custom of "dogfooding" contribute to the culture at Google?

course - Porject Management -