Between 2003 and 2006, Amazon went through a period of concentrated process invention. During those years, Jeff Bezos drove the development of a set of foundational operating practices that became the spine of Amazon’s culture and execution.
When people think of Amazon, they often think of groundbreaking services like 1-day delivery or innovative products like the Kindle, Alexa, or AWS. However, those services and products were only able to achieve such great success because of the processes that were behind their development.
Of the Amazon processes that were developed between 2003 and 2006, you may have heard of these especially famous ones:
→ “Working backwards” and the PR/FAQ
→ Single-threaded teams/leaders
→ Bar Raiser Hiring
→ Input/output metric reviews
→ The six-page narrative
The reason that Jeff and the leadership team were able to develop so many powerful mechanisms that are still in use to this day is that the process was iterative and grounded in a willingness to experiment and learn.
These processes came from trying to solve specific organizational pain points, not theoretical problems.
As process innovators, Amazon learned from traditional management science while also standing on the shoulders of other great companies and management thinkers. They adapted concepts to their unique scale and pace. It worked, and it stuck.
The important thing is that these weren’t hypothetical or academic ideas. They were forged under pressure and constantly iterated until they reached a lasting form.
Amazon’s true genius isn’t how they have delivered a single product or service, it is the creation of systems that allow them to consistently produce innovative products at scale.
After writing “Working Backwards,” Colin and I realized that we could have called the book “The Invention Machine,” because that is truly what Amazon is.
If you want to read that book, you can find it here: https://lnkd.in/gzJ4qb45
