PRESENTS

The Working Backwards Mastery 5-Course Bundle

Master Amazon’s Proven Frameworks for Predictable Growth, Operational Excellence, Innovation, Strategic Alignment, and Narrative-Driven Decision-Making

Unlock the complete Amazon management system with Input Metrics Mastery, Operating Plan Mastery, Bar Raiser Hiring Mastery, PR FAQ Mastery, and the brand-new Business Narratives Mastery in this exclusive 10+ hour training bundle. Learn to measure what truly moves the needle, build bullet-proof operating plans, hire people who raise the bar, innovate from the customer back, and replace slide decks with crisp six-page narratives that force clarity and produce dramatically better decisions.

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Our 30-Day Money Back Guarantee: If within 30 days, you are unsatisfied with your purchase for any reason, simply request a refund using the form at the bottom of this page and you’ll receive a full refund, no questions asked.

BY THE END OF THESE COURSES, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO:

  • Master Input Metrics: Achieve a deep understanding of input metrics, identify those relevant to your business, measure them effectively, and implement the Weekly Business Review (WBR) process to drive predictable growth and customer satisfaction.
  • Build a World-Class Operating Plan: Create a robust Annual Operating Plan (AOP), craft compelling Vision Documents, and implement Amazon-style review cadences (QBRs, MBRs, and S-team Goal Reviews) to align teams and achieve strategic goals.
  • Drive Customer-Obsessed Innovation: Apply the legendary PR/FAQ (Working Backwards) process Amazon has used to launch Prime, AWS, Kindle, and hundreds of other breakthrough products and services.
  • Acquire Top Talent with Bar Raiser Hiring: Master each step of defining roles, sourcing candidates, conducting behavioral interviews, writing assessments, leading debriefs, and implementing the process at scale.
  • Roll Out Narratives Across Your Organization: Pilot, coach writers and reviewers, and make narrative-driven decision-making a lasting competitive advantage.
  • Leverage Proven Frameworks & Tools: Use the DMAIC framework, Operating Cadence, WBR Reporting Tool, input metrics templates, PR/FAQ templates, hiring checklists, sample narratives, Weak vs. Strong Narrative cheatsheets, and more to embed these practices company-wide.

HERE’S WHAT THESE 5 COURSES COVER:

  • Lesson 1: Introduction to the Course
    Get an overview of what input metrics are, why they matter, and how this course will transform your approach to managing and growing your business.
  • Lesson 2: DMAIC
    Discover the power of the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) framework in refining input metrics and achieving consistent operational improvements.
  • Lesson 3: Amazon Case Study
    Learn from Amazon’s journey with input metrics, understanding how they shifted from output-focused goals to a precise, input-driven process, achieving scalable success.
  • Lesson 4: Discovering Your Input Metrics
    Identify the core input metrics for your unique business model, using practical techniques to uncover what truly drives your success.
  • Lesson 5: Measure
    Master the measurement phase to accurately capture input data, laying the groundwork for informed, effective decisions that propel your growth.
  • Lesson 6: WBR Overview
    Get introduced to the Weekly Business Review (WBR) process, a structured framework for reviewing metrics that keep you proactive rather than reactive.
  • Lesson 7: WBR Report
    Learn the step-by-step process for creating effective WBR reports, focusing on the right metrics to inform data-driven actions and decisions.
  • Lesson 8: WBR Meeting
    Explore how to conduct a successful WBR meeting, designed to foster a collaborative environment that keeps teams aligned and accountable.
  • Lesson 9: WBR App Introduction
    Gain insights into using the free, open-source Weekly Business Review App. Discover how to deploy it within your organization for streamlined data processing, report generation, and visualization of key metrics.
  • Lesson 1: Introduction to Amazon’s Operating Cadence
    Learn why Amazon has adopted this approach to planning and control. And we will review many examples, templates and tips along the way.
  • Lesson 2: Vision Planning
    How vision planning drives long-term thinking for your company to win in the specific segment or business unit and describes the significant steps to get there.
  • Lesson 3: Operating Plan (OP1) Kickoff
    Learn how to use this highly leveraged stage of the process to communicate expectations, explain and teach the process, provide structure, set the calendar and eliminate costly rework.
  • Lesson 4: The Annual Operating Plan
    Learn how well conceived operating plans enable alignment on the key metrics, initiatives, resources, and organizational structure for the company in the coming year.
  • Lesson 5: The OP1 Review Meeting
    Learn why Jeff Bezos describes OP1 reviews as “lengthy, spirited, and detail-oriented” and the best practices to bring to your organization.
  • Lesson 6: Goals and S-team Goals
    Learn what are Amazon S-team goals, how Jeff and the S-team select hundreds of goals each year, how progress is reviewed each month and quarter, and why the majority of goals are inputs.
  • Lesson 7: S-team Goal Reviews, QBRs, MBRs, and WBRs
    Learn why Amazon's main control processes are S-team Goal Reviews, QBRs, MBRs, and Weekly Business Reviews (WBRs), and how each Review is written and reviewed.
  • Lesson 8: Conclusion
    Summary of how Amazon increases their chances of consistently achieving goals year after year by defining clear initiatives, setting SMART goals, resolving dependencies early, and ensuring proper resource allocation.
  • Lesson 1: Introduction to the Bar Raiser Process
    Learn the philosophy behind Amazon's Bar Raiser approach, its benefits for scaling hiring quality, reducing bias, and ensuring cultural fit. We'll cover the challenges of rapid hiring and why "hire right" beats "hire fast."
  • Lesson 2: Hiring Process
    Explore the end-to-end hiring journey, from job descriptions and sourcing to screening, interview loops, assessments, debriefs, and offers. Compare your process to Amazon's and identify gaps.
  • Lesson 3: Conducting Effective Interviews
    Master behavioral interviewing techniques, using the STAR method to probe for real examples. Learn to prepare questions, manage time, take notes, and avoid common pitfalls.
  • Lesson 4: Reducing Bias
    Understand urgency, confirmation, and personal biases that derail hiring. Discover structured methods to eliminate them and make objective, data-driven decisions.
  • Lesson 5: The Written Assessment
    Learn to capture detailed, verbatim notes and craft strong assessments with pros/cons. Avoid weak summaries and ensure your feedback drives better hiring outcomes.
  • Lesson 6: Conducting an Effective Debrief
    Facilitate debrief meetings like a pro: Read assessments, re-vote, debate strengths/weaknesses, and guide decisions. Handle split votes and failure modes.
  • Lesson 7: Implementing Bar Raiser
    Build your Bar Raiser program: Select and train participants, scale across functions, and track metrics for success.
  • Lesson 1: Introduction to the Course
    An overview of the Working Backwards Press Release (PR) and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) process.
  • Lesson 2: Origins of the Working Backwards Method
    Discover the origins of the PR FAQ process, how it was created at Amazon, and why it remains the company’s most powerful tool for innovation.
  • Lesson 3: The Press Release - Your Customer-Centric Vision
    Master the heart of the method: how to write a press release that defines your vision, captures the customer’s excitement, and forces clarity of thought.
  • Lesson 4: The FAQs
    Anticipate external questions from customers, the press, and internal stakeholders, including each member of the C-Suite. Seek truth using this detail-oriented approach to new product innovation.
  • Lesson 5: Conducting Effective PR FAQ Meetings and Reviews
    Run effective meetings that surface insights, essential questions to be addressed, and engage in debate and discussion based on detailed plans.
  • Lesson 6: Making the Decision
    Use the PR FAQ process to determine what to build, what not to do, and how to prioritize your highest-impact opportunities.
  • Lesson 7: Going Slow to Move Fast
    Understand how the PR FAQ process prioritizes velocity over speed, how it complements other product development methods, and why it accelerates success.
  • Lesson 8: Conclusion
    Tie it all together and get started utilizing the Amazon Working Backwards PR FAQ successfully in your business.
  • Lesson 1: Introduction to the Course
    This lesson introduces the Narrative approach and explains why narrative documents matter for high-quality decision-making. It previews the course outcomes of writing and reading narratives, practicing the meeting ritual, and leaving with practical skills to implement the system.
  • Lesson 2: The Evolution of Communication
    A concise history traces writing from scriptio continua through spacing, punctuation, printing and grammar to show how reader-first conventions arose. The lesson draws the practical point that the conventions we take for granted like spaces, paragraphs, punctuation, were innovations that enabled silent reading and a high-bandwidth way of conveying complex ideas.
  • Lesson 3: Slides as Take Over
    This lesson explains how slide decks rapidly displaced earlier, reader- and idea-centered communication practices and became not only the dominant broadcast medium in business, but the de facto decision-making medium. While slides are effective for presenting to groups, they are a presenter-first, information-light detour that reduces an organization’s ability to make fast, high-quality decisions.
  • Lesson 4: Amazon’s Return to Narratives
    An insider’s view of Amazon’s switch to narratives as it happened in 2004. Experience how and why Amazon’s switch to narratives dramatically improved decision-making and became a competitive advantage.
  • Lesson 5: How to Effectively Write Narratives
    This lesson introduces the universal principles of narrative writing. It covers audience and accessibility, practical structure, concise and candid writing style, and process rules: draft alone first, solicit early feedback, then iterate so the main narrative remains focused and decision-ready.
  • Lesson 6: How to Effectively Read and Discuss Narratives
    Learn how to run effective meetings that surface insights, essential questions to be addressed, and engage in debate and discussion based on detailed plans.
  • Lesson 7: Implementing Narratives to Make Better Decisions in Your Organization
    This lesson covers practical rollout and cultural change: how to pilot narratives, and coach writers and reviewers.
  • Lesson 8: Various Types of Narratives
    Brief intro to specialized narratives commonly used at Amazon, including the Annual Operating Plan, Quarterly/Monthly Business Reviews, PR/FAQ, and Correction of Errors.

Our 30-Day Money Back Guarantee: If within 30 days, you are unsatisfied with your purchase for any reason, simply request a refund using the form at the bottom of this page and you’ll receive a full refund, no questions asked.

YOU’LL ALSO RECEIVE:

From Input Metrics Mastery:

Input Metrics Templates and Worksheets for B2B and B2C:

Save time and maximize impact with ready-to-use templates tailored to uncover the most influential metrics for any business model.

5 Whys COE Template and Example:

Dive deeper into root cause analysis with a structured template that guides teams to identify and solve issues effectively.

WBR Report Template and Example:

Get a head start on creating impactful reports with this plug-and-play template, designed to clearly communicate key metrics and insights.

WBR Project / Milestone List:

Keep your Weekly Business Review organized and efficient with a detailed project and milestone tracker, ensuring that nothing is overlooked.

WBR User Manual:

Seamlessly integrate the WBR App into your workflow with this comprehensive manual, enabling quick adoption and maximum utility from day one.

From Operating Plan Mastery:

Vision Planning Document Template

Save time and maximize impact with a ready-to-use template for writing great Vision documents.

OP1 Kickoff - Instructions and Tips:

This document outlines the structure and content of the OP1 Kickoff stage, including the investment envelope and guidance, as well as developing the OP Plan calendar.

Annual Operating Plan Tips & Template:

Get a head start with this guide, instructions, and template for writing effective annual operating plans. Everything you need to write an Amazon-style OP Plan document.

Annual Operating Plan Document Example:

A fully fleshed-out annual operating plan for a fictitious company that turns the template and instructions into a real-life example operating plan.

Monthly (MBR) or Quarterly Business Review (QBR) Document Example:

Using the same fictitious company, download this example of a well-executed quarterly business review, which makes it easy to go from the template and instructions to a perfect review..

Tenets and Sample Tenets:

Get an in-depth understanding of what a tenet is and how to develop effective tenets for your organization that speed decision-making and clarify direction.

From Bar Raiser Hiring Mastery:

Behavioral Interview Question Guide

Save time with ready-to-use questions tied to leadership principles, plus tips for probing effectively

Hiring Process Checklist & Template

Streamline your workflow with a customizable template for job descriptions, interview loops, and debrief agendas.

Debrief Meeting Framework

A step-by-step template for leading data-driven discussions, including pros/cons columns and voting protocols.

Written Assessment Tips & Example

Get a guide, instructions, and real example of a strong assessment to evaluate candidates objectively.

From PR FAQ Mastery:

Press Release Template & Example:

A plug-and-play format to get you writing compelling PRs in under an hour.

FAQ Library:

Sample questions and structured guidance to anticipate both internal and external challenges.

Customer Problem Worksheet:

Get a head start with this guide, instructions, and template for writing effective annual operating plans. Everything you need to write an Amazon-style OP Plan document.

PR FAQ Evaluation Criteria:

A checklist to help you determine if your draft meets Amazon’s standards of clarity, customer obsession, and rigor.

Review Meeting Playbook:

A framework to run six-page PR FAQ meetings that surface the truth and lead to clear outcomes.

From PR FAQ Mastery:

Questions for Readers:

A set of questions for readers to think about as they read and comment on narratives to improve the ensuing discussion and decision-making.

Sample Narrative:

A fictional narrative that is presented to an executive team.

Weak vs Good Narratives Cheatsheet:

Tips and examples for what make for strong and weak narrative documents.

GET DIRECT GUIDANCE FROM COLIN & BILL
WITH MONTHLY Q&A CALLS

Avoid roadblocks and get personalized answers from Colin Bryar and Bill Carr through exclusive monthly Q&A calls for bundle participants. Ask your most pressing questions, learn from peers, and deepen your understanding of all Working Backwards strategies.

  • Two time slots to accommodate global participants.
  • Recordings available for flexible access.
  • For plans with more than 30 users, request private Q&A calls for your company.

JOIN A COMMUNITY OF LIKE-MINDED PROFESSIONALS

Connect with Colin, Bill, and peers in the exclusive Working Backwards Forum. Discuss the training, share your metrics, operating plans, and tenets, and gain additional guidance between calls.

For plans with more than 30 users, request a private forum for your company.

WHY LEARN FROM US?

Colin Bryar

Joined Amazon in 1998 and spent 12 years on its senior leadership team, including two years as “Chief of Staff” to Jeff Bezos, shadowing him in meetings and travels. After Amazon, Colin served as COO of RedMart (sold to Alibaba) and co-founded Working Backwards LLC, coaching executives on Amazon’s management practices.

Bill Carr

Joined Amazon in 1999, spending over 15 years as Vice President of Digital Media, launching Amazon Music, Prime Video, and Amazon Studios. After Amazon, Bill was COO of OfferUp and co-founded Working Backwards LLC, coaching executives on Amazon’s proven methods.

Working Backwards MASTERY BUNDLE PACKAGES

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INPUT METRICS MASTERY
OPERATING PLAN MASTERY
Bar Raiser Hiring Mastery
PR FAQ MASTERY
BUSINESS NARRATIVES MASTERY

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($396 Savings)

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(Up to 30 Users)

All 5 COURSES + BONUS: Get 2 Hours of Consulting With Colin AND/OR BILL

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Our 30-Day Money Back Guarantee:

If within 30 days, you are unsatisfied with your purchase for any reason, simply request a refund using the form at the bottom of this page and you’ll receive a full refund, no questions asked.

THE VALUE OF THESE COURSES

As a former Amazon vice president for more than a decade, 40-year veteran in the tech industry, and tech strategy consultant, one might think I had no lessons to learn from Working Backwards’ “Input Metrics Master” video training series. Nothing could be further from the truth! Bill and Colin’s masterwork provides critical background on the importance of driving business results through input metrics, refinement, and team-based learning. The series provides excellent case studies, extremely useful frameworks, and hands-on tools (including usable source code!) for implementing the time-tested Weekly Business Review (WBR) approach Amazon mastered to become the 2nd largest company in the world based on revenue. I highly recommend the series for leaders at any ambitious company.
IAN FREEDStrategy and Product Consultant, Remitly
I started executing an Amazon-style Weekly Business Review in my company in 2023, after learning it from Colin Bryar. This course was a much-needed refresher and a good reminder of the level of excellence we should aspire towards. It covers everything you need to know about running a WBR for the first time, and pays special attention to the hardest bit: coming up with good controllable input metrics! I have found that — through trial and error — you do get better at selecting controllable input metrics over time. But in truth, the frameworks that Colin and Bill teach in this course will help you get there faster.
CEDRIC CHINFounder, Postcognito
The Working Backwards training, led by Bill and Colin, has been transformational for our team at Remitly. The 'Working Backwards' methodology — especially with newly added input metrics mastery focus with templates and tools — have provided clear frameworks and actionable techniques to build customer-centric products. Bill and Colin have uniquely democratized the proven management practices and strategic rigor that underpinned Amazon's extraordinary success, making these powerful tools accessible and effective for companies like ours. At Remitly, adopting these methods has sharpened our focus, improved decision-making, and elevated our ability to deliver exceptional value to our customers.
ANKUR SINHAChief Product and Technology Officer, Remitly
As a former Amazon vice president for more than a decade, 40-year veteran in the tech industry, and tech strategy consultant, one might think I had no lessons to learn from Working Backwards’ “Input Metrics Master” video training series. Nothing could be further from the truth! Bill and Colin’s masterwork provides critical background on the importance of driving business results through input metrics, refinement, and team-based learning. The series provides excellent case studies, extremely useful frameworks, and hands-on tools (including usable source code!) for implementing the time-tested Weekly Business Review (WBR) approach Amazon mastered to become the 2nd largest company in the world based on revenue. I highly recommend the series for leaders at any ambitious company.
IAN FREEDStrategy and Product Consultant, Remitly
I started executing an Amazon-style Weekly Business Review in my company in 2023, after learning it from Colin Bryar. This course was a much-needed refresher and a good reminder of the level of excellence we should aspire towards. It covers everything you need to know about running a WBR for the first time, and pays special attention to the hardest bit: coming up with good controllable input metrics! I have found that — through trial and error — you do get better at selecting controllable input metrics over time. But in truth, the frameworks that Colin and Bill teach in this course will help you get there faster.
CEDRIC CHINFounder, Postcognito
The Working Backwards training, led by Bill and Colin, has been transformational for our team at Remitly. The 'Working Backwards' methodology — especially with newly added input metrics mastery focus with templates and tools — have provided clear frameworks and actionable techniques to build customer-centric products. Bill and Colin have uniquely democratized the proven management practices and strategic rigor that underpinned Amazon's extraordinary success, making these powerful tools accessible and effective for companies like ours. At Remitly, adopting these methods has sharpened our focus, improved decision-making, and elevated our ability to deliver exceptional value to our customers.
ANKUR SINHAChief Product and Technology Officer, Remitly