This course provides a comprehensive understanding of Amazon’s "Working Backwards" mechanism, the cornerstone of its innovation process. Participants will explore how Amazon evolved traditional innovation approaches into a systematic framework that drives every development project within the company.

• The course begins by introducing the foundations of Amazon’s innovation culture, mental models, and organizational setup, offering insights into how its mechanisms, internal tools, and company culture empower employees to empathize with customers, identify opportunities, propose ideas, and see them through testing.
• Next, participants will delve deeply into Amazon’s signature innovation mechanism, Working Backwards, exploring its step-by-step process, the tools involved, and the creation of artifacts such as PRFAQs. The course demonstrates how these artifacts are used to test ideas, assess outcomes, and inform decisions, while also covering rapid prototyping through the Batch Financing approach and explaining how the process integrates into Amazon’s annual planning. Additionally, the course highlights the role of Generative AI tools in enriching, challenging, and verifying outcomes at every stage of the Working Backwards process, showcasing how these tools can enhance creativity and decision-making.
• In the final section, participants will apply their knowledge to a real-world scenario by identifying a customer problem and using the Working Backwards methodology to create artifacts and develop an idea for a new product or service. With guidance from the trainer, this hands-on exercise simulates Amazon’s innovation process, equipping participants with practical skills to implement in their own organizations.

1. Intro and Context
2. 1. Amazon’s innovation culture, how Culture (Leadership Principles), Mechanisms (Working Backwards), Architecture (Self-service tools without Gatekeepers) and Organization (2-Pizza Teams) enables innovation and fosters rapid experimentation for 27 years now
   2. Why Design Thinking became the leading innovation method in Amazon’s Customer Obsessed culture?
   3. Amazon’s Narrative culture and its influence on the innovation process. How do they communicate new ideas inside the organization
3. The Working Backwards (WB) Mechanism
4. 1. What is Working Backwards and how it evolved?
   2. The WB process and the artefacts created
   3. The Working Backwards process of the Kindle and the Go Store
   4. Design Thinking and Working Backwards comparison
5. WB Phases: 1. Listen
6. 1. Empathy Map: Facts-Goals-Pains-Behaviours
   2. Goals-Pains-Behaviours chains
7. WB Phases: 2. Define
8. 1. Problem Definition using “Today…” statements
   2. “How might we…” and “What if…” challenges
   3. Using GenAI tools in the process to refine and verify answers for the Working Backwards questions
9. WB Phases: 3. Invent
10. 1. Brainstorming methods – Crazy 8s, Six Thinking Hats
    2. Using GenAI tools to support ideation
    3. How to avoid early solutioning
    4. Defining the “Big Idea”
       
11. WB Phases: 4. Refine
12. 1. Press Release definition and structure
    2. Internal and External FAQ
    3. Visuals
    4. Tips & Tricks to write like an Amazonian
    5. Using GenAI to draft PRFAQs, create visuals to revise and critique PRFAQs
13. WB Phases: 5. Closing
14. 1. The afterlife of a PRFAQ
    2. Rapid Prototyping, build rapid prototypes with AI no-code tools
    3. Batch financing of innovation
    4. Planning innovation, OP1 and OP2 (Operational Planning 1 and 2), applying the “Frugality” Leadership Principle
15. Working Backwards workshop
16. 1. Listen
    2. Define
    3. Invent
    4. Refine
    5. Test and Iterate

By the end of the course, participants will:

• Clearly understand Amazon’s innovation process.
• Confidently articulate the steps and artifacts of the Working Backwards methodology.
• Execute a Working Backwards mechanism to define new products or solutions using the Press Release and Frequently Asked Questions (PRFAQ) format.
• Effectively leverage GenAI tools to enrich, challenge, and validate the outcomes and artefacts of the innovation process.

Classroom training supported with online knowledge summary, refresh and testing