Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon

Here’s another example of where a single-threaded leader and team helps. I was accountable for the financial performance and overall health of the affiliates business. Our team had virtually all the resources required to launch this feature: we had software engineers and product managers to build the feature; and we had our own customer service rep

separable, single-threaded team being run by a single-threaded leader like Tom. As Jeff Wilke explains, “Separable means almost as separable organizationally as APIs are for software. Single-threaded means they don’t work on anything else.”8 Such teams have clear, unambiguous ownership of specific features or functionality and can drive innovations

We focus on variances and don’t waste time on the expected People like talking about their area, especially when they’re delivering as expected, and even more so when they exceed expectations, but WBR time is precious. If things are operating normally, say “Nothing to see here” and move along. The goal of the meeting is to discuss exceptions and wh

Edward Tufte sums up the benefits of narratives over PP with his own blunt clarity: “PowerPoint becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of PowerPoint makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

The right input metrics get the entire organization focused on the things that matter most. Finding exactly the right one is an iterative process that needs to happen with every input metric.

But Jeff felt that if we tried to manage digital media as a part of the physical media business, it would never be a priority. The bigger business carried the company after all, and it would always get the most attention. Steve told me that getting digital right was highly important to Jeff, and he wanted Steve to focus on nothing else. Steve wante

First, customer-focused ideas come from all areas within Amazon. Many companies have the “business people” tell the “technical people” what to build. There’s little discussion back and forth, and the teams stay in their own lanes. Amazon is not like this at all. It’s everyone’s job to obsess over customers and think of inventive ways to delight the

When the retail, operations, and finance teams began to construct the initial Amazon WBR, they turned to a well-known Six Sigma process improvement method called DMAIC, an acronym for Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control.1 Should you decide to implement a Weekly Business Review for your business, we recommend following the DMAIC steps as well. Th

Over time, we refined and normalized the specifications for the PR/FAQ. The press release (PR) portion is a few paragraphs, always less than one page. The frequently asked questions (FAQ) should be five pages or less. There are no awards for extra pages or more words. The goal isn’t to explain all the excellent work you have done but rather to shar