www.lesswrong.com/posts/Pw2BAEP6iEoxAaTH4/parkinson-s-heuristic
1 correction found
two senior Amazon executives explain that all projects at Amazon start first with a written press release that announces the launch of the product they're proposing to build.
This overstates Amazon’s PR/FAQ process. Amazon’s own materials say Working Backwards was used for **most major products and initiatives since 2004**, not literally **all projects** at Amazon.
Full reasoning
Amazon’s published excerpt from Working Backwards does not say that all projects at Amazon begin this way. It says: “Most of Amazon’s major products and initiatives since 2004” were created through the Working Backwards process. That is a narrower claim in two important ways:
- Not all projects — only most major products and initiatives.
- Not all time periods — specifically since 2004.
Amazon’s own AWS material also describes PR/FAQ as part of its product management approach for products, services, and features, not as a universal rule covering every kind of project across the company. So the post’s sentence overgeneralizes Amazon’s stated practice.
In short: the cited Amazon sources support that PR/FAQ is a central mechanism for many major product efforts, but they do not support the stronger claim that all projects at Amazon start with a press release.
2 sources
- What's it like to work at Amazon?
Most of Amazon's major products and initiatives since 2004 have one very Amazonian thing in common-they were created through a process called Working Backwards.
- AWS Product Management | AWS Executive Insights
To begin - before we ever request a budget, assemble a team, or write a line of code - we write a press release (PR) for what we imagine this final product will accomplish... AWS product management starts with working backward from the customer to define the "PR FAQ," ensuring every new service or feature solves a real user need.