
Jeff Bezos and Root Cause Analysis - Anon84
http://www.shmula.com/987/jeff-bezos-5-why-exercise-root-cause-analysis-cause-and-effect-ishikawa-lean-thinking-six-sigma
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SwellJoe
Bezos spoke at Startup School last year, and I think a lot of people were
struck by how aware he was about very technical details at Amazon (Web
Services, specifically). What impressed me most, however, was that when one of
his employees gave a waffly non-answer to a question from the audience, he
called him on it (subtly and politely), and made the guy commit to a real
answer to the question...and made him personally responsible for it (with a
comment along the lines of, "You can email him for that information and he'll
get it to you.").

It was interesting to see, and it struck me as one of the things about Bezos
that can explain how he has been so successful with a "bookstore on the web"
when so many other "X on the web" concepts failed. You can't control every
customer interaction in a company that size, but in that moment he established
a precedent for that particular group of employees (probably folks who don't
deal with customers a lot, since they were tech folks from AWS).

What I'm saying is that Bezos has certainly drunk some kind of obsessively
customer-focused Kool-Aid, and I think I would take any opportunity I could to
learn from him.

~~~
gruseom
That's interesting. The thing that stuck with me from that talk was when he
was asked about Google App Engine. His answer was that Amazon has had a policy
for years of not talking about competitors, not because they want to be
evasive but because they don't want to take their focus off customers.
Attention paid to what competitors are doing is attention not paid to what
customers need next. I was deeply impressed by that.

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coderrr
Why did the associate damage his thumb? Because his thumb got caught in the
conveyor.

Why did his thumb get caught in the conveyor? Because he was chasing his bag,
which was on a running conveyor.

Why did he chase his bag? Because he placed his bag on the conveyor, but it
then turned-on by surprise

Why didn't he hit the off button on the conveyor instead of chasing it?
Because he wans't near the off button?

Why don't we have multiple off buttons so you're never far from one? That's
expensive, let's buy some tables instead.

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kcy
Great talk by Bezos on how the internet is more like electricity than the gold
rush:
[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_we...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_web_innovation.html)

This is similar to his Startup School talk
(<http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/jeff-bezos>), but perhaps offers a
bit more perspective.

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jodrellblank
That's only four why's, and it doesn't address why the employee suddenly
needed a table.

Which means it may not be the "root cause", either, and the offered "more
tables" solution may not help.

~~~
extension
I commented about this on the linked site and it was deleted.

Adding a table strikes me distinctly as ignoring the root of the problem,
which probably has more to do with safety standards and training. There has to
be a more robust way to prevent accidents than luring people away from them.

So, ironically, this seems to be an example of asking too many questions, and
we're not even at 5 yet.

~~~
potatolicious
Actually, "luring" people away from accidents is often a better way than
strict training. "Don't jay-walk across the freeway" will only work when a
viable (and safe) crossing is close by. Otherwise your users will simply
ignore your training to make their lives easier.

~~~
extension
True, and I'm all for that kind of thinking _in addition to_ common sense
precautions. Maybe that was the case and there were huge signs and training
manuals and off buttons all over the place but coderr's scenario sounds more
likely.

My larger point is that failure analysis is complicated and full of red
herrings. Simplifying it to "five whys" (or four, or six) only creates false
security.

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tholder
Has everyone forgotten this?
[http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sect...](http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article5337770.ece)

Seems like Jeff could do with getting down to the distribution floor again!

~~~
gruseom
I hadn't seen that. Amazon is a puzzle to me. They do so many things right,
yet I keep hearing that it is not a good place to work.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Probably because they do the software stuff right, but a huge number of their
employees are schlepping boxes in warehouses, or doing customer service?

Anyway, it's not an especially big deal to me that they would fire someone for
taking too many sick days right before Christmas. If they disclose this to
employees beforehand, they're likely to weed out people who tend to take sick
days, whether for legitimate reasons or not.

~~~
gruseom
I've also heard from software people that it isn't a good place to work. In
fact, I've only heard it from software people. I haven't talked to or read
blog posts from anyone who's worked in their warehouses.

~~~
potatolicious
Depends on where you are. "Front-facing" teams (e.g. site front-end and
whatnot) tend to have a lot of sleepless nights when things blow up and a fix
is immediately needed.

Software guys in the "back" tend to not live such a stressful existence, since
there's far more time leeway for fixing things.

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ChaitanyaSai
Kind of off-topic, but does Yahoo (or is it the publisher?) really think that
interjecting ads in the middle of a narrative actually makes people want to
click on the link? Do they really not know the least about human psychology?
Most people who get to that point in the article have an inertial interest in
finishing, and also a bias towards skimming over any contextual discontinuity.
There are contrast effects that pull you towards them, and those that are
obstacles people are happy to ignore. This is the second kind.

And, I should add, what works on television (ads in the middle) doesn't work
in the same way for text. There is a natural ebb and flow of attention in a TV
narrative,

~~~
h34t
I would guess they pay more attention to what works and what doesn't than to
psychological theory or conjecture. It's easy for anyone to monitor what kind
of ads perform better than others, and since ads are much of Yahoo's bread and
butter, you can be sure they are paying attention.

~~~
ChaitanyaSai
I agree. So I should rephrase my question. Do these ads really perform better
than footnote ads? I wouldn't be surprised if the higher clickthroughs are
accidental (which, I am sure they measure for).

