Amazon Internal Press Release in Product Management

Last year I changed the way I approach new features or any new projects with my team.

My objective:

How to align the whole company, from marketing to operations? Based on what the product team is building?

The Problem:

There was a misalignment between Marketing & Sales and Product & Engineering. E.g. Engineering deploys to production today, Marketing posts on Social Media in a week.

Mismatching customer feedback, engineering efforts, and other areas like customer support updates. E.g. updated knowledge base, notifying users with the new feature.

The Solution:

An Internal Press Release

Now, any new feature or request starts with an Internal Press Release.

The Internal Press Release which was conceived in Amazon. Ian McAllister, Ex-Amazon Sr. Product Manager: _“Amazon’s approach to product development is by working backwards from the customer, rather than starting with an idea for a product and trying to bolt customers onto it.”

Does it work?

It works. It forces you as Product Manager [to think] to synthesize the details needed to launch, for example:

• Who is the buyer?
• Which user persona?
• How does the product work?
• Pricing?