Reminded me that I heard that Google's 20% time had generally like 10% participation and has had a number of conditions including manager approval for the last 4 years. Is this article breathing new life into the myth of 20% time or does this reflect the revival of the process?
Either way, incredible accomplishment on the patch army!
I took copious amounts of 20% time in my time at Google (2009-2014). Usually I'd start a 20% project with neither my manager's knowledge nor his approval; if it looked like it had legs, I'd let him know about it and ask what he thought. I never had a manager outright forbid me from working on a 20% project; responses ranged from "You should consider this your main project now; it's critically important that we understand this area" (along with a spot bonus for delivering on it) to "Well, you can work on it, but you are unlikely to get credit for it come promo time." In general, as long as I got my work done, my managers didn't care what else I was working on.
This suited me fine - usually the way I took 20% time was to fit it into time periods when I didn't really have much else to do or I was bored with my main project. And splitting it up like this let me focus more intently on both of them, which helped in delivering.
It certainly depends on the particular manager or even org, but in general 20% projects are still a thing for those who want them (not many).
Why is that? Any more insight for that?
And even when a person is enjoying the 20% opportunity, most of the time there is no good project to take on. During my stays at Google, I've done many 20% projects (>10), but only had a 20% project may be a third of the time.
IMHO, this is a good example of 20%.