Slashdot reports on a blog entry by a Google developer, which makes the following description of innovation practices there:

“Developers can switch teams and/or projects any time they want, no questions asked; just say the word and the movers will show up the next day to put you in your new office with your new team.

Â

There aren’t very many meetings. I’d say an average developer attends perhaps 3 meetings a week.

Â

Google has a philosophy of not ever telling developers what to work on, and they take it pretty seriously.

Â

Google tends not to pre-announce. They really do understand that you can’t rush good cooking, you can’t rush babies out, and you can’t rush software development.”

Fortune magazine has an in-depth report on the challenges involved in such a ‘culture of chaos’, see here. See also our Delicous tag on P2P Work Culture for similar articles.