Culture of Innovation by Phillip Potloff
- 1. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Amazon’s Innovation Culture Philip Potloff Head of Enterprise Strategy, AWS
- 3. WHEN AMAZON MOVED FROM: Physical World Digital World Ideas to move closer to Content Creators: Kindle Direct Publishing Amazon Publishing Amazon Studio/Golden globe Award winning TV shows Alexa Ideas to move closer to the Customer: Kindle MP3 music store Prime Instant Video (PIV) Fire TV Echo Strategic Focus: Get Closer to the Ends of the value chain
- 4. Our Mission to be Earth’s most customer-centric company
- 5. Our Commitment we make our customers’ lives easier
- 6. Where innovation begins we start with the customer and work backwards
- 7. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. 77 Amazon’s Growth Flywheel > Value > Selection > Convenience
- 8. Our culture of Innovation »Customer Obsession “Start every process with the customer and work backwards.” »Long Term Thinking “Be stubborn on the vision but flexible on the details.” »If you want to be inventive, you have to be willing to fail. “We are willing to go down on a bunch of dark alleys and occasionally we find something that really works.” »You have to be willing to be misunderstood for a long time. “We are very comfortable being misunderstood.”
- 9. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
- 12. Mechanisms Encoded behaviors that facilitate innovative thinking Architecture Structure that supports rapid growth and change Culture Customer obsession, hire builders, let them build, support them with a belief system Amazon’s Innovation Approach Organization Small, empowered teams that own what they create
- 13. Mechanisms
- 14. Working Backwards is a process Use it to get clarity, not to document what you’ve already decided to do. Customer Press Release FAQ User Manual
- 15. Who is your customer? Be specific about their context and needs
- 16. The 5 Questions
- 17. The FAQ • Include both customer FAQs and stakeholder FAQs • Include the hard questions • Share your Press Release early to gather questions
- 18. Visuals • Rough idea – rough drawing • Match fidelity to maturity of your idea • Don’t be afraid to be provocative • Create discussion
- 19. Artifacts from the Working Backwards process Press Release FAQ Visuals
- 21. “Why Amazon Is The World’s Most Innovative Company Of 2017” fastcompany.com
- 22. Architecture
- 23. “Invention requires two things: the ability to try a lot of experiments, and not having to live with the collateral damage of failed experiments.” Andy Jassy CEO, Amazon Web Services
- 27. The most radical and transformative of inventions are often those that empower others to unleash their creativity – to pursue their dreams.
- 28. Self-service Platforms without Gatekeepers We are creating powerful self-service platforms that allow thousands of people to boldly experiment and accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible or impractical.
- 34. At Amazon, we hire Builders and let them build.
- 35. 1. Customer obsession 2. Ownership 3. Invent and simplify 4. Are right, a lot 5. Hire and develop the best 6. Insist on the highest standards 7. Think big Amazon’s Leadership Principles 8. Bias for action 9. Frugality 10. Learn and be curious 11. Earn trust 12. Dive deep 13. Have backbone; disagree and commit 14. Deliver results
- 36. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. 3939 Is it a one-way or a two-way door?
- 37. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. 4040 Learn from failures…
- 38. Organization
- 39. Image by Guido van Nispen in the Dutch Digital Pioneer collection “The traditional model is that you take your software to the wall that separates development and operations, and throw it over and then forget about it. Not in Amazon. You build it. You run it.” Dr. Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon
- 40. Amazon Achieves Speed and Agility with Two-Pizza Teams Small, decentralized teams are nimble Own/run what you build
- 41. Jeff Bezos CEO, Amazon.com We've had three big ideas at Amazon that we've stuck with for 18 years… put the customer first, invent, and be patient.
- 42. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Thank you Philip Potloff Head of Enterprise Strategy, AWS @philippotloff
- 43. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Learning and Best Practices Ahead in the Cloud Stephen Orban The Art of Business Value Mark Schwartz A Seat at the Table Mark Schwartz Enterprise Strategy Blog https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/enterprise-strategy