Putting Amazon’s PR/FAQ to Practice

Most PR/FAQs are rejected, and the ones that pass often generate further questions that need to be answered. This is a feature, not a bug. Spending time up front to think through all the details of a product preserves your company's resources to build products that will yield the highest impact for customers and the business.

Another one of the biggest benefits of a written PR/FAQ is that it enables the team to truly understand the specific constraints and problems that would prevent a new product idea from being viable and aligning on them.

The Features and Benefits of the PR/FAQ The primary point of the process is to shift from an internal/company perspective to a customer perspective. Customers are pitched new products constantly. Why will this new product be compelling enough for customers to take action and buy it? A common question asked by executives when reviewing the product f

... See more

Side benefit of this method: by forcing multiple iterations on a PR/FAQ, you implicitly gain the approval of everyone who reviews it, demands iterations on it, and subsequently approves it. This then means that when a product passes the PR/FAQ process but subsequently fails in the market, people are more likely to take collective responsibility.

Amazon.com has a product development process they call Working Backwards. Rather than starting from an idea or a technology, you start by writing the press release for the product.

The target audience is the customer.

The press release is circulated internally.

If the press release isn't compelling, you don't have a strong product hypothesis. Iterate!... See more

The articulation is so crisp that the press releases include a six-page list of hypothetical frequently asked questions from customers. This exercise forces the team of experts at Amazon to put themselves in the position of nonexperts and view the product from their perspective. It requires them to ask “stupid” questions and come up with answers—ev

... See more