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

a bias for separable teams run by leaders with a singular focus that optimizes for speed of delivery and innovation; the use of written narratives instead of slide decks to ensure that deep understanding of complex issues drives well-informed decisions; a relentless focus on input metrics to ensure that teams work on activities that propel the busi

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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

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Amazon’s ‘working backwards process’ is a pretty fascinating example of an alternative to Lean Startup that works . It's simple to describe, but difficult to do. Amazon’s method for  betting on new products is to start from the customer experience and working backwards from that by writing a press release that literally announces the product a... See more

Many companies that decide to enter a business area in which they have little internal expertise or capability choose to outsource, as happened in the early days of e-commerce when brick-and-mortar retailers created their first online retail sites. They brought in third-party developers, consultants, and sometimes both. This approach enabled them t

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