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How the BBC’s ‘10 per cent time’ works

Posted by Martin Stabe on 8 January 2008 at 16:46
Tags: BBC

All of the designers, developers, project managers at BBC Audio and Music Interactive are allowed to spend 10 per cent of their time working on their own pet projects — anything they like as long as it is work-related and benefits the Beeb.

Inspired by Google’s famous “20 per cent time” principle, the system has already yielded one product launch: the iPhone-optimised BBC podcast downloads page.

Tristan Ferne explains how it works over on the BBC Radio Labs blog.

Related:

• iPhone podcast service is first fruit of BBC ‘10% time’
• Telegraph developers weekend: Morning highlights
• Could Kelner be right about podcasting?
• Telegraph hiring more podcast staff

Tags: BBC

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1. Eamon |  8 January 2008 at 8:39pm

   Well, having worked as an advertising account planner, I can appreciate that time dedicated to ideas - or generating ideas - can works wonders. And I am sure the same applies to the world outside advertising as well.

2. Simon Dickson |  9 January 2008 at 9:30am

   I’m all for ‘20 per cent’ time; in fact, it’s one of the reasons I set myself up in business. But with hard numbers attached, I can’t help feeling it makes the BBC look only half as committed to the idea as Google. It’ll be interesting to see if the Beeb staffers can match some of Google’s 20 per cent-based innovations: Gmail, Google News and the recent Charts API to name but three.

3. Teaching Online Journalis&hellip |  10 January 2008 at 1:42pm

   [...] The BBC has done this. The idea comes from Google (and maybe other technology companies; I don’t know), which gives its employees 20 percent time to work on projects that are not part of their assigned job duties. Switching teams at Google is a very fluid process. An engineer can be 40% on one project, 40% on something completely different and 20% on his or her own thing.  That mix can be adjusted as project requirements change. Switching groups should also not have an affect on your annual review score because of arbitrary team politics. Joining a new group is more about find a good mutual fit then going through HR and a formal interview loop. When there is an important project that needs to be staffed the groups and execs will evangelize that need and someone who is interested is bound to step up. [...]

4. Electric Fishwrap &rsaquo&hellip |  11 January 2008 at 3:03am

   [...] Mindy points us to the Fleet Street blog, where the blogger reports that the BBC is already doing 10 percent time in newsrooms: All of the designers, developers, project managers at BBC Audio and Music Interactive are allowed [...]

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