google project management

google project management

The Impact of Google’s Project Management Practices on Innovation and Success

1. Introduction to Google’s Project Management Philosophy

After its initial public offering in August 2004, Project Management at Google increasingly caught attention outside the company. In September 2005 alone, a book about Google’s talent management practices was published. The McKinsey Quarterly contained an article on “Google’s new growth engine: What it means for business and the economy,” and Business Week asked, “Who needs Harvard? The best new MBAs are getting that way at Google.” Gassée and Palmer (2006: 41) ask Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf: “Project Management: Metric slip, and ideas can be both too popular and too fuzzy to lead to useful results. Rapid, poorly managed growth can squelch creativity and limit reward.”

Google has a suite of differentiating technology that allows the company, to quote its Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, “to innovate in several interesting ways.” Unique technology – the firm’s custom-built server farms and search algorithms in particular – seems to be the main basis for differentiating Google from its competition.

Before one can examine the actual effectiveness of a company’s project management practices, however, one needs to know more about the way the company manages its projects. This chapter, therefore, sets out to describe Google’s unique philosophy toward both project management and innovation.

Google is widely regarded as the hottest new company in the business world. Over the years, the firm has won countless “best workplace” and “best employer” awards and is being looked upon with increasing interest by scholars. Twenty-five per cent of the world’s 1 billion people with Internet access visit a Google site every day, and the firm has already passed the $10 billion revenue mark. Hence, Google’s capacity to handle projects in an efficient and effective manner is of immense interest.

2. Key Project Management Strategies and Tools Used by Google

The study undertook primary research and data collection to verify the key project management strategies that Google has continuously emphasized over the years. The four research objectives were to determine the key project management factors, methods, and tools utilized in managing Google projects; understand the importance of project management on innovation and success; map the relationships among different variables surrounding the impact of Google’s project management practices on innovation and success; and generate updated findings about Google’s project management practices and their implications.

A literature review on project management strategies and tools used by high technology companies to create innovation success in the US, such as Intel, IBM, Apple, Google, and others, demonstrates that they share similar aspects. These aspects include great investment in research and development, rewarding employees based on products, increased adaptation, and increased software. In terms of project management strategies and tools, there are seldom consistent reasons shared in the literature. Hence, different solution roadmaps are applied in different companies.

3. Case Studies of Successful Projects at Google

Arguably, more notable is the firm’s approaches to innovation and success. Both have lessons. The project with the greatest sales and income is an advertising project called High Performance Advertisement (HPA). Google AdWords is the most successful advertising marketplace by various measures. The importance of ads on the right-click of a Google result page has meant that more significant resources have been directed to this project than to any other. Apart from the obvious advertisement advantage, HPA introduces many project management tools and behaviors that are of general application. The techniques include a synchronized Scrum with five daily reviews. It is the first to take the Triage approach to the entire project. Leadership, behavior, culture, and competences all further innovation.

We have mentioned various Google projects in the earlier sections. These had a style that set them apart from other companies’ efforts. Here, we attempt an overview of various aspects. More detailed case studies can be found in the missing chapters. When compared to pictures of recent decades, the company has changed. It was and still is quite self-effacing. Attendance at the annual Skoll World Forum in 2013 provided the opportunity for a long-awaited visit. That it should lead to a transformation in some ways was not surprising.

4. The Role of Project Management in Driving Innovation at Google

Google insists that value from projects, even though it recognizes the restrictions of traditional project management. Projects at Google don’t imply that the status quo should be followed by a dedicated team with specific labels, a defined scope, and a timeline within the gate. Even without a formal project designation, a Google employee could lead a product release or promotional activity effectively. Technology and Information Staff at Google often operate in an unstructured, natural framework. They frequently gravitate to projects for the difficult problems to solve. They are often excited about the assignments and bring their energy even when they take on more straightforward tasks. One unique characteristic of technology and information workers is that they are more likely to see inherently creative: named by the book The Making of the Information Man, as resources are knowledge workers.

Developing breakthrough new products takes innovation. This can involve solving complex problems, experimentation, and rapidly learning what works and what doesn’t. It means needing both visionary, long-term thinkers who create new products as well as practical engineers, scientists, and professionals who can solve the difficulties, identify modifications, and get things done. It involves collaboration, risk-taking, and addressing multiple disciplines. Projects provide the structure typically required to produce advantages such as accountability, formal planning procedures, tracking of successes, and a process for placing the most significant resources in them. It isn’t the process that creates invention, nor should it restrict it, but project management usually involves procedures that can enhance it.

5. Conclusion and Future Implications

The use of project management methods is not only useful in the cyber world but should also be adopted by non-technology companies. This method concentrates on human capital, communication, and the utilization of time to benefit the bottom line. has definitely led the way in incorporating project management methods. Companies can only benefit by implementing such practices. In future studies, comparisons should also be made between project management approach and other successful companies. Other research could analyze the applicability of all project management fundamentals within companies that utilize models. Additionally, further research involving this paper should also focus on the phenomenon of innovation that project management practices produce.

The result of utilizing integrated project management based on methods has led to innovation, creating diversity, more effective use of employees, and higher quality products while maintaining low costs. has maintained the leading position in the search engine market as the number one most visited website. Project management has played a crucial part in allowing them to evolve from a simple idea to a successful and competitive internet giant.