‘Innovate or Die’: Why Google’s 80/20 Rule is a Red Herring

80/20 up in the air at the Googleplex: Is juggling time between core work and innovation a bad idea?

 

Dating back AT LEAST TO 2007, Google’s 80/20 policy has famously granted employees 20 percent time for creative side projects — and has been widely emulated by companies (such as Hootsuite) as a best practice for unlocking enterprise-wide creativity and innovation.

Yet now, suddenly, Google may be pulling the plug. Which begs the question: Have we been wrong all along? Is the 80/20 rule, in fact, a bad idea?

There are two answers: yes and no. Understanding the interplay between them is critical to understanding how innovation actually happens within large companies.

In one respect, the 80/20 rule is very obviously a good idea. Innovation is a very difficult rhythm to scale across a large, distributed organization in which the largest barriers, by far, are time and attention. Because we are all so busy executing — meeting deadlines, delivering revenue, pleasing the boss — it’s not impossible to find time for anything new, unproven or risky. The 80/20 rule is a clever policy lever (among many) for sanctioning “time for innovation.”

 

https://www.wired.com/insights/2013/08/innovate-or-die-why-googles-8020-rule-is-a-red-herring/