Unidentified dependencies are one of the biggest reason companies cannot execute. At Amazon, we established two mechanisms to address this: the Working Backwards PR/FAQ process and the Annual Operating Plan (OP1). Here’s how they help overcome dependency blockers:
In both the Working Backwards PR/FAQ process and the Annual Operating Plan (AOP), you must identify your key dependencies at the outset and get affirmative approval from those teams *before* you begin work on your project.
For example, if your plan requires resources from the payments team, you must get approval from that team before finalizing and committing to the plan. Then, the payments team must also include the project in their own annual operating plan.
This may seem obvious, but it’s actually in contrast to how many companies operate.
Most companies discover their dependencies during the build process —resulting in the classic “We can’t move forward because we need X from team Y.”
At Amazon, we realized that projects lose significant momentum when they get stuck in this kind of holding pattern.
We also learned that you either discover dependencies before you build, during the build, or after launch. The later you uncover them, the greater the cost.
So, we made identifying dependencies an essential part of both our annual and product planning processes. This requires more effort upfront, but it saves far more time and resources later when those same blockers would otherwise surface midstream.
This type of preemptive work can feel antithetical to the “move fast” or “test and learn” ethos of many innovative companies, but it actually disrupts only the *illusion* of speed—not real speed. Teams that skip this step seem to move quickly, but often get stuck in a dead end created by their unresolved dependencies.
Amazon, on the other hand, realized that the *intention* to move quickly and *actually* moving quickly are not the same thing. So, we mechanized the upfront work that enables true speed—even if the start feels slower.
Speed should be not be measured by how quickly you begin work but instead by how quickly you launch a feature, product, or service.
If you want to see templates and guides for the Working Backwards PR/FAQ process, visit our website: https://lnkd.in/eQCq32Cx
