Microsoft finally unveiled the new much-rumored organizational plan. Glad to see Microsoft moving audaciously. This is long overdue.
However, knowing that organization, I don’t know if there is much chance that it will be successful. The whole organization has been set up to compete with each other for decades. This kind of cultural change is probably beyond what is possible at this point. The battle lines are too well established, the rivalries too set in stone.
The culture of Microsoft has always been one of intense competition. Successful individuals and managers rise more on their ability to outshine their peers rather than cooperate. A new high-level alignment or a single memo will not change that. If Microsoft really wants to be nimble and more collaborative, they need to clear house.
Furthermore, organizing engineering as massive silos that are parallel to the other massive silos representing other business functions is exactly the wrong way to do this. Every new effort will require coordination between massive groups with conflicting priorities, politics and agendas. Everything will be harder. The company itself is so massive that having responsibility for the success meet at the tops of these tall functional mountains will not be sufficient to make these efforts work. The people with responsibility will be too far away from the details to be effective. Layers upon layers of management (each with their own goals, agendas and success metrics) will need to be navigated to get any level of cooperation.
It’s going to be a tough few years for the employees at the company. For the front-line engineers, their day-to-day work will probably not change much, but at the higher levels, there is going to be tremendous pain as the new structure and corresponding power battles work themselves out. In the end, I expect very little will change on the inside, or the outside.
I’d be delighted to see Microsoft prove me wrong.