Innovation at Google Google approaches product development in the following way. The company accepts ideas from everyone in the organization, through a variety of sources, such as meetings, focus...

Innovation at Google Google approaches product development in the following way. The company accepts ideas from everyone in the organization, through a variety of sources, such as meetings, focus group sessions, and, of course, the Web. The company also has brainstorming sessions every week to come up with new product ideas. Once it has collected these ideas, the company then seeks to prioritize them on the basis of usefulness to users, difficulty of implementation, and effect on revenues. It then creates small teams of engineers to work on the ideas that are identified as a priority. If a project is large, it is subdivided so that all the work is done in teams of three. The team is colocated and works together for about three months. One person, the lead, is made responsible for achieving technical excellence. The product development efforts require minimal documentation. Every Monday, each employee sends a “snippet”—an e-mail message about what they are working on—to others in their work group.116 The rest of the time, the team is free to work on the project without documenting its actions. Evaluate this approach to innovation. What do you think is good about it? What do you think are the drawbacks? Explain why you make this evaluation.