Working Backwards
Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
"Working Backwards" provides an insider's view of Amazon's operational and management practices from two long-time executives. The book details specific processes that enabled Amazon to scale from an online bookstore to a global technology leader, including their unique approaches to meetings, hiring, and product development.
The book introduces key Amazon mechanisms such as the "Working Backwards" process, the Bar Raiser hiring program, and the six-page narrative memo. These practices reflect Amazon's core philosophy of starting with the customer and working backwards to create solutions. Through detailed examples and case studies, it shows how these mechanisms function in practice.
The authors demonstrate how Amazon's leadership principles drive daily decision-making and long-term strategy. They explore how Amazon maintains its culture of innovation while scaling, providing practical frameworks for other organizations to adapt these practices to their context.
By reading Working Backwards, you will:
- Master Amazon's approach to product development: Learn how to start with customer needs and work backwards to create solutions, using tools like the PR/FAQ document to validate ideas before investing resources.
- Implement effective decision-making processes: Understand how to structure meetings, documentation, and planning to make better decisions and maintain clarity at scale.
- Build high-performance organizational systems: Learn to create mechanisms that reinforce cultural values and drive consistent results across growing organizations.
- Design metrics that drive right behaviors: Understand how to focus on controllable input metrics rather than output metrics, creating more predictable and manageable outcomes.
Books to Follow
"Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan: Provides a comprehensive framework for product development that complements Amazon's Working Backwards process. While "Working Backwards" demonstrates Amazon's specific approach to product creation, "Inspired" offers a broader perspective on product management principles and practices. It helps readers understand how to implement customer-centric product development in various organizational contexts, expanding on the philosophical foundation that drives Amazon's success.
"No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention" by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer: Offers a fascinating counterpoint to Amazon's highly structured approach to innovation and management. Where "Working Backwards" shows how Amazon uses specific mechanisms to maintain consistency at scale, "No Rules Rules" reveals how Netflix achieves similar goals through radical transparency and minimal process. This contrast helps readers understand different paths to building high-performance organizations and when each approach might be most effective.
"Build" by Tony Fadell: Expands on the product development themes in "Working Backwards" through the lens of a different tech pioneer. While "Working Backwards" focuses on Amazon's systematic approach to product creation, "Build" provides insights from the creator of the iPod and Nest, showing how to combine technical excellence with deep customer understanding. It offers valuable perspectives on translating customer needs into breakthrough products, complementing Amazon's methodical process with lessons from consumer hardware development.
"7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy" by Hamilton Helmer: Provides a theoretical framework for understanding the strategic thinking behind Amazon's practices. Where "Working Backwards" shows how Amazon implements its strategy through specific mechanisms, "7 Powers" explains the fundamental sources of persistent business advantage. It helps readers understand the strategic principles that make Amazon's practices particularly effective and how to identify similar opportunities in their own contexts.
"Team Topologies" by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais: Expands on the organizational design principles that "Working Backwards" introduces through Amazon's single-threaded leadership concept. Where "Working Backwards" shows how Amazon structures its teams, "Team Topologies" provides a comprehensive framework for thinking about team interactions and boundaries. It offers additional patterns for implementing the kind of autonomous, focused teams that Amazon's approach requires.
"High Output Management" by Andy Grove: Explores the foundations of effective management that underpin many of Amazon's practices. While "Working Backwards" shows how Amazon implements specific management mechanisms, "High Output Management" provides the fundamental principles of scaling organizations and managing complexity. It helps readers understand the theoretical basis for many of Amazon's approaches to meetings, decision-making, and performance management.
"Measure What Matters" by John Doerr: Deepens the understanding of goal-setting and metrics that "Working Backwards" introduces through Amazon's focus on controllable input metrics. While "Working Backwards" shows how Amazon approaches measurement, "Measure What Matters" provides a broader framework for implementing objective and key result (OKR) systems. It helps readers understand how to create the kind of measurable, actionable goals that drive Amazon's success.
Customer Obsession as Strategic Differentiation
Amazon’s fundamental approach of working backwards from customer needs, rather than forward from internal capabilities, enables breakthrough innovations. By imagining the ideal customer experience first and then working to create it, organizations can develop truly transformative products and services.
Organizational Mechanisms over Good Intentions
The book emphasizes that sustainable organizational change requires concrete mechanisms, not just leadership principles. Amazon’s success comes from creating specific, repeatable processes like the six-page narrative memo, bar raiser hiring, and working backwards product development that systematically reinforce desired behaviors.
Single-Threaded Leadership
By assigning dedicated, fully empowered leaders to specific initiatives and minimizing organizational dependencies, companies can dramatically increase innovation velocity and reduce coordination overhead. This approach allows teams to move quickly and take ownership of their specific domain.
Narrative Over Presentation
Replacing PowerPoint presentations with detailed, prose-based six-page memos forces deeper thinking, reduces presentation bias, and creates a more substantive basis for decision-making. This approach encourages comprehensive analysis and clearer communication.
Long-Term Value Creation
Amazon’s leadership principles prioritize long-term thinking over short-term optimization. By focusing on creating sustainable customer value and being willing to invest deeply in breakthrough innovations, organizations can build more enduring competitive advantages.
Q: How can smaller organizations implement Amazon’s practices?
A: Start with key mechanisms like the Working Backwards process and narrative documents. These can be implemented at any scale and provide immediate benefits in clarity and decision quality. Add other practices gradually as the organization grows.
Q: What makes Amazon’s approach to metrics different?
A: Amazon focuses on input metrics (things teams can control) rather than output metrics (results). This creates clearer accountability and more predictable outcomes. For example, measure product selection (controllable) rather than revenue (outcome).
Q: How does the Working Backwards process improve product development?
A: It forces teams to clearly articulate customer benefits before building anything, reducing wasted effort on features customers don’t want. The PR/FAQ format requires thinking through implementation challenges early, leading to better-planned projects.
Q: Why does Amazon avoid PowerPoint presentations?
A: PowerPoint encourages superficial thinking and can mask weak ideas behind good presentation skills. Narrative documents force deeper thinking and allow readers to better understand complex topics, leading to better decisions.
Q: How does single-threaded leadership differ from traditional project management?
A: Single-threaded leaders have full ownership and authority over their initiatives, with no competing responsibilities. This reduces coordination overhead and speeds up execution by eliminating the need for constant cross-team alignment.
- When scaling organizations: You’re facing challenges of maintaining culture and effectiveness while growing. The book provides specific mechanisms for maintaining consistency and quality at scale.
- During organizational transformation: Your company needs to improve decision-making and execution. The book offers concrete processes for better planning, hiring, and product development.
- When implementing customer-centric practices: You want to build truly customer-focused products and services. The book shows how to structure development processes around customer needs.
- When improving operational effectiveness: Your organization struggles with meeting execution or quality standards. The book provides frameworks for better planning and accountability.
