Oh yes: I'm super super super excited to dig into Working Backwards. goodreads.com/book/show/5313
My one sentence pitch: it's the first book that describes how Amazon REALLY works internally, written by insiders who were in the room when the techniques were invented.
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This book is amazing so far (am at Chapter 3, and can’t put it down).
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Hmm, seems like two pizza teams no longer exist at Amazon, and they haven’t for some time.
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The most interesting thing about Amazon’s decentralised execution style is how different it is from, say, Apple’s, which is tightly coupled vertical teams.
But Amazon’s business necessitates it; they are in more industries and in more product categories than Apple.
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Amazon isn’t fully decoupled, of course:
Some teams, like Payments, must be coupled (they see this as a necessary tax).
The STL idea worked best with product dev teams (doesn’t apply to legal, retail, HR, etc)
Transitioning to this model was painful as hell.
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I’m now at the chapter where they talk about Narratives, and I’m so here for this.
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Quick update on this: Working Backwards is everything I wanted it to be. Bryar and Carr make a coherent, believable case for how Amazon is able to do the things it does.
(They also give enough context, and tell enough colourful stories, to tell you how each technique emerged!)
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I’m thinking of writing a summary, but it probably won’t be comprehensive. This is a tree book, not a branch book, and thus it is difficult to summarise.
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I’ve written a comprehensive summary of Chapter 6, on how Amazon measures its business here: holistics.io/blog/how-amazo
I’m still thinking of ways to apply some of these ideas.
Oh, and, yes: I THOUGHT I was operationally rigorous.
I no longer think so.
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