“We all agreed at the outset that a smaller team would work better than a larger one,” the authors write. It was a seductive idea, but it didn’t work as well as Amazon had hoped. Why The Famous Two-Pizza Teams Didn’t Work So Wellįor instance, Working Backwards explains why Amazon now puts much less emphasis on its famous two-pizza teams. It gives a blow-by-blow account of why Amazon arrived at the process, including what went wrong along the way. But the book is not just a tale of triumph and how wonderful Amazon was or is. Working Backwards explains the process in detail. But along with SRI’s NABC’s process, it is one of the best. This book would be a valuable read for founders and managers.The PR/FAQ and the metrics are reviewed by a high level committee that decides whether to proceed and, if so, how much resources will be assigned to the proposal.Īmazon’s PR/FAQ is not the only effective strategic planning process for the digital era. It is interesting to understand the decisions that went behind these products and how Amazon pushed towards market leadership in each segment.

The second part deals with the many products that Amazon has brought forth, mainly, Kindle, Prime, Prime video and AWS. Each team communicated to the others using services and API calls This enabled Amazon to expose any internal product from a team to the outsde world quickly gaining first mover advantage.

Metrics measure achievement, not activity with emphasis on customer facing variables rather than internal variables.

Any idea is condensed to a six pager which is read before meetings by everyone involved in teh meeting.

Leadership is single threaded: every major priority has one leader responsible for it whose 100% reponsibility is delivering that product eliminating dropped balls from multitasking or leadership vacuums.

Development at Amazon works backwards from the desired customer experience and any idea begins with a press release that elicits discussion, critique and customer feedback on a development proposal.

A quote that stuck with me was : every company has a culture, if you don’t actively create it, you’ll learn about it once it is made.

Amazon culture places a lot of stress on its 14 leadership principles. The first part deals with the culture of Amazon ranging from hiring, organization, in house communication and metrics of achievement. Working Backwards is a business book on the story and culture of Amazon. Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon

Amazon book working backwards