How Amazon’s working backwards process drives innovation
I was a VP at Amazon from 2004 to 2014. In that time, every major new product innovation was built using the same exact process. 11 years later, they are still using that process for everything they build. Here’s how it works. The process is called Working Backwards. It flips the traditional invention approach by […]
by Bill Carr
How Amazon’s weekly business review drives data-driven leadership
At Amazon, the Weekly Business Review (WBR) is a structured, data-driven meeting designed to keep leadership deeply connected to both strategy and execution. It differs from traditional leadership meetings in the following ways: Unlike conventional wisdom that suggests senior executives should focus only on high-level strategy, Amazon operates on the principle that leaders must “dive […]
by Bill Carr
How Amazon uses input metrics to drive customer growth
Financial results are lagging indicators. They measure what has already happened and offer little guidance on what to do next. This is why Amazon operates around input metrics that can be deliberately managed to drive growth. Here’s how they work. Controllable, customer-facing input metrics are just as the name describes: 1. Controllable – These are […]
by Bill Carr
Addressing interconnected challenges to improve decision making
Since publishing “Working Backwards,” we’ve worked with dozens of CEOs who have read the book and sought our advice. They almost always begin by describing challenges like difficulty launching new initiatives, lack of ownership, and struggles in meeting financial targets. These are common challenges that we faced at Amazon in the late 90s and early […]
by Bill Carr
Making decisions at the last responsible moment
When working on complex or multi-part decisions, Jeff Bezos constantly asked us, “When is the last responsible moment that we can make this decision? Do we have to make all these decisions today? Are there some we could make later?” He would ask this as a way of teaching the team a decision-making method that […]
by Bill Carr
10 tips to ace an Amazon interview with bar raisers
I spent 15 years at Amazon, 10 as a Vice President. I conducted ~5 interviews/week for positions ranging from interns to SVPs. Here are my 10 tips for how to ace an interview at Amazon: First, it is important to understand how Amazon interviews differ from other companies. In most companies, interviewers can use their […]
by Bill Carr
Learning from failure in Amazon’s product launch
In 2006, I led a disastrous product launch for Amazon. My mistakes cost the company millions of dollars. Here is what I wrote about my own performance and why Jeff Bezos didn’t fire me: This is my self-assessment from my performance review that year: “Overall, my performance was dreadful in 2006. In Unbox (the product), […]
by Bill Carr
Celebrating four years of working backwards insights
Today marks the fourth anniversary of our book Working Backwards. Colin Bryar and I spent more than a year writing this book. We worked closely with our former colleagues and leaders at Amazon to make sure that we accurately recounted meaningful historical events, and how Amazon developed a series of scalable management processes that have […]
by Bill Carr
How single threaded leadership improved Amazon’s outcomes
“Who’s the most senior single-threaded leader for this new initiative?” Jeff Bezos asked this question whenever he detected that organizational structure was the root cause of a schedule delay for a new product, project, or process. Amazon was organized by function before implementing Single Threaded Teams (STTs). Functional teams (in particular product, design, and engineering) […]
by Bill Carr
Implementing Amazon leadership principles in your company
What differentiates Amazon’s Leadership Principles (LPs) from nearly every other company? Why are they such an effective management tool, and why are they a crucial contributor to Amazon’s phenomenal success? The short answer is that they are woven into every aspect of how everyone at Amazon works, thinks, and acts every hour of every day. […]
by Bill Carr