working-backwards

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Use when asked to "working backwards", "PR/FAQ", "Amazon PR/FAQ", "write a press release", "define a new product", or "write a customer-focused PRD". Helps define products by starting with the customer problem and desired outcome before building. The Working Backwards process (developed at Amazon) forces clarity on customer value before committing engineering resources.

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Sourcepmprompt/claude-plugin-product-management

Added on2026-02-15

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add pmprompt/claude-plugin-product-management working-backwards

SKILL.md Content

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Working Backwards

What It Is

Working Backwards is Amazon's product development methodology. The core insight: start with the customer problem and work backward to the solution, not the other way around.

Most teams work forward: "We have this technology/capability/idea — what can we build with it?" Working Backwards inverts this: "What problem does the customer have? What would the ideal solution look like? Now, how do we build it?"

The mechanism: Write an internal press release and FAQ before building anything. If you can't write a compelling press release, you don't have a compelling product.

As Jeff Bezos put it: "We took it as an article of faith — if we served customers well, if we prioritized customers and delivered for them, things like sales, revenue, and free cash flow would follow."

When to Use It

Use Working Backwards when you need to:

Define a new product or major feature before committing resources
Evaluate competing product ideas and choose which to build
Align stakeholders on what you're building and why
Force clarity on vague product concepts
Prevent building solutions in search of problems
Create a shared vision that engineering, design, and leadership can rally around
Decide whether an idea is worth pursuing at all

When Not to Use It

The work is incremental optimization (A/B tests, bug fixes)
You're executing on an already-defined product
The scope is too small to warrant the overhead

Resources

Books:

Working Backwards by Bill Carr and Colin Bryar
The Everything Store by Brad Stone