(2021-03-15) Garrison The Document Culture Of Amazon

Justin Garrison: The Document Culture of Amazon. In my time at Amazon, I’ve observed the way we use documents is incredibly unique. A lot has been written about the six-pager (Amazon Meeting Memo) and PR/FAQ so I’m not going focus on document formats, but I wanted to share how our process benefits from document-based meetings. I also have identified some areas for improvement if you are looking to adopt document-based meetings for your workplace.

Most of the time, if there isn’t a doc there isn’t a meeting.

Depending on the meeting, the document could be a six-pager, a PR/FAQ, a one-pager about an idea, a narrative to help find a solution to a problem, or even a service review full of charts, graphs and bullet points. The document adapts to fit the audience and purpose of the meeting.

Reading documents is so ingrained in our culture and process that our scheduling tools have check boxes to automatically create a document

Meetings start with reading. Depending on the length of the document, we’ll read anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour. If the meeting has a long document (six-pagers are the longest) and many attendees, the meeting will be scheduled for enough time to read and discuss.

You are not expected to retain document information outside of the meeting. Feedback and discussions happen during the meeting. Comments can be answered asynchronously. If more discussion is needed then the document will be revised and a new meeting will be scheduled to read and discuss it.

There are some limitations to document based meetings... if you’re not a very good writer you will be at a disadvantage communicating your ideas.

I’ve been told “if there’s no document, it doesn’t get done.” This includes meetings. If there’s no document, we cancel the meeting

The available wealth of historical documents can be enlightening to read through, but it also can be confusing to trace the lineage of a service with a plethora of documents and comments.

I’ve said multiple times that Amazon has the foundation for a great remote-first company. The document-based process provides employees in multiple timezones the same context as someone in Seattle

I’ve never had the benefit of attending an Amazon meeting in person

I know the person who called the meeting invested their time so they don’t waste mine. I reciprocate the same thoughtfulness with meetings I create and documents I write.