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Through a bunch of events, my 20% project (part-time side project at google) has become one that could best be described as project management. It’s a really weird world to which I wasn’t previously exposed. Additionally, project management is difficult for reasons that are hard for me to describe.

The most jarring thing coming from the engineering side is the way in which decisions are made. Decisions in engineering are typically consensus-oriented. If I disagree with another engineer at a meeting, even someone who’s been there for several years, my idea can win out if I can support it (often there are empirical ways to decide these things). The management end is much less empirical, so it’s often impossible to decide things this way. This breeds politics, which means that you need to be careful about what you say. Luckily I have smart people supporting me in my work.

My Dad would always tell me that “no matter what job you’re working, you’re always working in sales”, which is true, but there are significantly different types of sales at work here. I can sell things to engineers with facts and figures, but for non-engineers I seem to need to rely on vision and potential benefit.

Perhaps this stuff is all obvious, but I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately.

If my project is successful, I’ll be able to write about it in about a month.