What Is the Working Backwards Method

What does the Working Backwards method mean?

The Working Backwards method, often called the Amazon Method, is a process for vetting product ideas that starts by defining the customer experience first, then works backward from that point until the team has real clarity about what to build. Per Amazon's own account of its culture and processes, the method's central tool is the PR/FAQ, a press release and frequently asked questions document written from the perspective of launch day, even though the product does not exist yet. Writing the press release forces the team to state, in plain customer language, the problem being solved and why a customer would actually use the answer, before a single line of code gets written.

Why the Working Backwards method matters for product managers

Builders Camp's own Product Strategy resource library curates Working Backwards alongside its Product Vision material because the two exercises solve the same underlying problem: forcing a team to describe an end state in plain language before arguing about implementation. A PM who has never written a PR/FAQ tends to jump straight into a spec, which buries the actual customer benefit under a list of requirements nobody outside the team can evaluate. The rule of thumb Amazon uses, that a press release that is hard to write signals a product that is probably not ready, gives a PM a cheap, fast way to kill a weak idea before it costs any engineering time. That cost difference is the whole point: a rewritten paragraph is nearly free, while a rewritten codebase rarely is. Builders Camp treats that asymmetry as the actual argument for the exercise, not a nice-to-have step that a confident team can skip.

Working Backwards method example

A team considering a new bulk-import feature writes the press release first: a headline naming the customer benefit, a quote from a hypothetical customer describing the problem it solves, and an FAQ section answering the hardest questions a skeptical stakeholder would ask, including why this and why now. If the team cannot write a convincing customer quote without inventing benefits nobody actually asked for, that is a signal to revisit the product vision behind the feature before writing a PRD at all. Only once the press release reads honestly does the team move on to scoping the actual build.

How Builders Camp teaches the Working Backwards method

Product Strategy, a 2 week bootcamp with 4 live sessions and 8 microlessons taught by Andre Albuquerque, curates the Working Backwards template directly in its deep dive reading list alongside its own product vision and roadmapping material. Product Manager Foundations introduces the discovery mindset the method depends on earlier in the curriculum. See the Product Strategy bootcamp for the full curriculum.