So far in 2012, I have been seeing humor in some concepts that seemed exemplary in 2011.
I wrote about the concept of '20-percent time' at Google in my "From mediocre concepts to very successful launches - Insights from Pixar on developing great products' article. The summary from Google states:
"We offer our engineers “20-percent time” so that they’re free to work on what they’re really passionate about. Google Suggest, AdSense for Content, and Orkut are among the many products of this perk."
Through Dan Pink's TEDx talk on motivation, I knew of the practice of FedEx Days at Atlassian. There is a FedEx Day approximately once per quarter.
"Atlassian's "FedEx Day" is time set aside for developers to work on whatever they want with a skew towards our products. We tend to run "FedEx" with a fairly open format where you can do whatever you want as long as you can somehow relate it to our products."
What happens on the other days?
What happens during the other days? At Google, what happens the other 80 percent of the time? At Atlassian, what happens the other 58.5 days of the quarter?
It is easy to recall the opposite of 'passionate' and 'do what you want.'
Certainly, representatives from Google and Atlassian didn't intend for someone to infer that employment at their companies was unappealing on the other days. Certainly, Dan Pink isn't suggesting that companies limit the pursuit of autonomy, mastery, and purpose to special days.
Goals for 2012
During the other days, Google, Atlassian, and your company will strive to do what they believe is best to accomplish their missions. Special days will be a part of the strategy to do that and remain a successful business.
My goals for 2012 include:
- Publish more on the causal principles of NPD success related to individual performance and interactions
- Reduce internecine warfare that arise from functional silos within development organizations.
- Increase the coherence of new product development efforts
- Provide more compelling input to those in new product development leadership positions
- Improve my agility. Help others improve their agility.
- Create more virtuous circles to help others in development networks
- Minify time in boring meetings
The list is partial and it is long. It will take my best efforts and a lot more than 20 percent of my time.
