Assignment 2:

Assignment 2 – Google: New-Product Innovation at the Speed of Light

Google is wildly innovative. It recently topped Fast Company magazine’s list of the world’s
most innovative companies, and it regularly ranks among everyone else’s top two or three inno-
vators. Google is also spectacularly successful. Despite formidable competition from giants like
Microsoft and Yahoo!, Google’s share in its core business—online search—stands at a decisive
66 percent, 2.5 times the combined market shares of its two closest competitors. The company
also captures 86 percent of the mobile-search market and 60 percent of all search-related adver-
tising revenues.

But Google has grown to become much more than just an Internet search and advertising com-
pany. Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessi-
ble and useful.” In Google’s view, information is a kind of natural resource—one to be mined
and refined and universally distributed. That idea unifies what would otherwise appear to be a
widely diverse set of Google projects, such as mapping the world, searching the Web on a cell
phone screen, or even providing for the early detection of flu epidemics. If it has to do with har-
nessing and using information, Google’s got it covered in some innovative way.

Google knows how to innovate. At many companies, new product development is a cautious,
step-by-step affair that might take a year or two to unfold. In contrast, Google’s freewheeling
new-product development process moves at the speed of light. The nimble innovator implements
major new services in less time than it takes competitors to refine and approve an initial idea. For
example, a Google senior project manager describes the lightning-quick development of
iGoogle, Google’s customizable home page:

It was clear to Google that there were two groups [of Google users]: people
who loved the site’s clean, classic look and people who wanted tons of infor-
mation there— e-mail, news, local weather. [For those who wanted a fuller
home page,] iGoogle started out with me and three engineers. I was 22, and I
thought, “This is awesome.” Six weeks later, we launched the first version in
May. The happiness metrics were good, there was healthy growth, and by
September, we had [iGoogle fully operational with] a link on Google.com.

Such fast-paced innovation would boggle the minds of product developers at most other compa-
nies, but at Google it is standard operating procedure. “That’s what we do,” says Google’s vice
president for search products and user experience. “The hardest part about indoctrinating people
into our culture is when engineers show me a prototype and I’m like, ‘Great, let’s go!’ They’ll
say, ‘Oh, no, it’s not ready.’ I tell them, ‘The Googly thing is to launch it early on Google Labs
[a site where users can try out experimental Google applications] and then to iterate, learning
what the market wants—and making it great.’” Adds a Google engineering manager, “We set an
operational tempo: When in doubt, do something. If you have two paths and you’re not sure
which is right, take the fastest path.”

According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, when it comes to new product development at Google,
there are no two-year plans. The company’s new-product planning looks ahead only four to five
months. Schmidt says that he would rather see projects fail quickly than see a carefully planned,
long drawn-out project fail.

Google’s famously chaotic innovation process has unleashed a seemingly unending flurry of di-
verse products, ranging from an e-mail service (Gmail), a blog search engine (Google Blog
Search), an online payment service (Google Checkout), and a photo sharing service (Google Pi-
casa) to a universal platform for mobile-phone applications (Google Android), a cloudfriendly
Web browser (Chrome), projects for mapping and exploring the world (Google Maps and
Google Earth), and even an early-warning system for flu outbreaks in your area (FluTrends).
Google claims that FluTrends has identified outbreaks two weeks sooner than has the U.S. Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Prevention.

Google is open to new-product ideas from about any source. What ties it all together is the com-
pany’s passion for helping people find and use information. Innovation is the responsibility of
every Google employee. Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their time de-
veloping their own new-product ideas. And all new Google ideas are quickly tested in beta form
by the ultimate judges—those who will use them. According to one observer:

Any time you cram some 20,000 of the world’s smartest people into one
company, you can expect to grow a garden of unrelated ideas. Especially
when you give some of those geniuses one workday a week—Google’s fa-
mous “20 percent time”—to work on whatever projects fan their passions.
And especially when you create Google Labs (www.googlelabs.com), a
Web site where the public can kick the tires on half-baked Google creations.
Some Labs projects go on to become real Google services, and others are
quietly snuffed out.

In the end, at Google, innovation is more than a process—it’s part of the company’s DNA.
“Where does innovation happen at Google? It happens everywhere,” says a Google research sci-
entist.

Talk to Googlers at various levels and departments, and one powerful theme emerges: Whether
they’re designing search engines for the blind or preparing meals for their colleagues, these peo-
ple feel that their work can change the world. The marvel of Google is its ability to continue to
instill a sense of creative fearlessness and ambition in its employees. Prospective hires are often
asked, “If you could change the world using Google’s resources, what would you build?” But
here, this isn’t a goofy or even theoretical question: Google wants to know because thinking—
and building—on that scale is what Google does. This, after all, is the company that wants to
make available online every page of every book ever published. Smaller-gauge ideas die of dis-
interest. When it comes to innovation, Google is different. But the difference isn’t tangible. It’s
in the air—in the spirit of the place.
 Assignment Requirements:

Discussion Questions:

1. Based on information in this chapter, identify major similarities and differences be-
tween the new-product development process at Google versus that found at most
other companies.
2. Is Google’s product-development process customer centered? Team based?
Systematic?
3. Considering the product life cycle, what challenges does Google face in managing its
product portfolio?

Rubric for Assignment:

Group:

Criteria Available Points

Page numbering, 12 pt. font, & organization/layout of 0.5

Clear and concise presentation of ideas 1

Have fun and learn!