When I was at Amazon, Annual Operating Plans (OP1) went through multiple rounds of review before being finalized, first with the VP who owned the function, then with their SVP, and finally with Jeff Bezos and the S-team.
Once each OP1 document was completed, it was up to each Amazon Executive leader (the S-team) to critically read the plan, ask probing questions, provide constructive feedback, discuss and debate controversial topics, and ultimately make company-wide decisions on resource allocation, goals for metrics, and new initiatives.
There is a lot to be learned from the way that Execs at Amazon evaluated each plan.
Here is a list of the kinds of questions they would consider while reading each plan:
→ Do I clearly understand how this team will create additional customer value next year?
→ Am I looking at the right input and output metrics? If not, which ones are missing or incorrect?
→ Is the detailed wording of each metric exactly what we want?
→ Do any of these initiatives or goals merit dedicated time from the executive team to review throughout the year? (These will become S-Team Goals).
→ Does the team have too many, or too few resources to accomplish each of the work streams and initiatives outlined in the plan?
→ Is the team thinking big enough?
→ Do they have the right mix of activities including bold bets, improving the core business, and fixing paper cuts?
→ Where are the risks in this plan? Have they been identified and properly mitigated?
→ Are there any dependencies on my organization? If so, has someone from my organization reviewed them and are they accurate?
→ For each initiative, are all of the dependencies called out and resolved?
→ Are these the most important initiatives that will move the needle in a meaningful way for this business?
→ Are the team’s key assumptions true? A good technique to answer this question is to look at the inverse case. Try to find any cases where the assumption is not true.
→ Do I have conviction that, this is the right plan to enable the team and our company to achieve our financial goals?
Watch the video to learn more about running an OP1 review.
If you want to learn more about creating, reviewing, and implementing operating plans, see our course: https://lnkd.in/gVQB3Qj9
