Understand the current system
Over about four weeks, we interview the top 7-15 leaders, observe important operating meetings, and review plans, reports, documents, and spreadsheets.
Colin Bryar and Bill Carr spent a combined 27 years as senior Amazon executives and wrote the bestselling book Working Backwards. They help companies apply the repeatable management processes used at Amazon to invent, measure, plan, hire, and make decisions. You can learn the processes through our online courses, or work directly with Colin and Bill to put them into practice in your organization.
Companies come to us because something in how they operate is not working: annual goals do not translate into clear priorities, coordinated action, and results; metrics direct attention to the wrong things; meetings consume time without producing decisions; hiring is inconsistent; or promising ideas stall before reaching customers.
We do not define success as delivering a report. When annual planning works, goals guide priorities, resource allocation, and day-to-day decisions. When innovation works, promising ideas move from proposal to product. Because these are recurring processes, the benefits compound across teams and over time.
We bring the mechanisms, experience, and guidance. Your people build and operate the process with us. By the time we are done, the capability belongs to your organization and does not depend on us being there.
Every engagement is designed around knowledge transfer and client ownership. We help your team understand the process, adapt it to the realities of your business, work through implementation decisions, and build the operating cadence needed to sustain it.
Colin or Bill is your point of contact. There is no handoff to a junior consulting team.
Your team learns and implements independently
Your team learns and implements independently
Your team drives; we coach each week
For organizations prepared to run the project with a regular hour of expert guidance.
Your team drives; we work alongside it
For organizations that want deep, hands-on support throughout implementation.
Need a different scope? We also consider fixed-price engagements, a narrower project, or a combination of these options.
The example below is for a company implementing input metrics and a Weekly Business Review. A Bar Raiser program, PR/FAQ process, annual planning mechanism, or another practice will require a different workflow, participants, and set of deliverables.
Over about four weeks, we interview the top 7-15 leaders, observe important operating meetings, and review plans, reports, documents, and spreadsheets.
We assess how the organization makes decisions, builds plans, measures results, develops new ideas, conducts meetings, hires, and communicates direction.
We deliver a narrative document describing the problems, their root causes, recommended process solutions, and the next steps.
We review the narrative with the CEO and executive team, resolve open questions, and agree on the implementation sequence.
From this point, the work becomes process-specific. For the WBR example, we help the company define input metrics, build the report, establish the meeting, and support its early operating cycles.
Input metrics
Leaders identify and define the inputs that most directly influence desired business results.
Standard reporting
A scalable report and format that helps leaders read signals across a large set of metrics.
Weekly Business Review
A structured leadership meeting with clear roles, preparation standards, and decision practices.
Implementation plan
A practical sequence of owners, milestones, dependencies, communications, and operating dates.
Team training
Training for leaders, metric owners, and participating teams so they can run the mechanism well.
Early-cycle support
Observation and coaching during the first operating cycles, including at least four initial WBRs when that is the chosen process.
“They didn’t build the solution for us. They taught our team how to implement it and stayed involved during and after implementation. They didn’t give us a fish; they taught us how to fish.”
— CEO, Working Backwards client
Direct access
Colin or Bill works with your organization at every level—from executive discussions to hands-on sessions with managers and individual contributors.
Specific recommendations
We adapt the processes to your circumstances. The aim is a mechanism that works in your company, not a generic copy of another organization.
A clear finish line
The engagement is intended to leave your team operating at a high level on its own, with the knowledge and confidence to keep improving the process.
No. We can be deeply involved, but your company owns the decisions, project resources, and operation of the process. That ownership is what allows the capability to last.
Most last four to twelve months, depending on the number and scope of the processes being implemented and
the rate at which the organization completes each step.
Yes. The course bundle is a self-contained option for up to 30 users and includes two hours with Colin or
Bill. Sitewide access to the relevant courses is included with weekly coaching and full advisory.
Colin Bryar or Bill Carr is your direct point of contact. They conduct executive discussions, working
sessions, reviews, and coaching themselves.
There is an initial 60-day period. After that, either party may terminate with 30 days’ written notice.
Yes. References from CEOs and executives at companies where we have implemented these practices are
available upon request.
If the outcomes matter, your leadership is prepared to participate, and one of these engagement levels looks appropriate, the next step is a conversation about the operating problem and your organization’s readiness to address it.