From the category archives:

2-pizza teams

Amazon and Zappos Sitting in a Tree

by Pete Abilla July 22, 2009

As most you know by now, Zappos has entered into a definitive agreement with Amazon.com and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.  This is exciting and, after speaking with my friends both at Amazon and at Zappos, they are all quite excited too.  Congratulations to Amazon, Zappos, Tony Hsieh, and Jeff Bezos 1  [...]

5 comments continue reading

The Source of Dirt

by Pete Abilla May 26, 2009

In Amazon’s 2008 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos shares about a Kaizen event he participated in: At a fulfillment center recently, one of our Kaizen experts asked me, “I’m in favor of a clean fulfillment center, but why are you cleaning? Why don’t you eliminate the source of dirt?” I’ve spoken numerous times about Bezos [...]

3 comments continue reading

Jeff Bezos and Root Cause Analysis

by Pete Abilla January 23, 2009

unrelated update: Deconstructing the Apple iPhone Supply Chain I’m always impressed when CEO’s demonstrate Deming-like behavior as they lead; it’s rare, but there’s almost a magical, mobilizing, and inspiring force that happens when CEO’s or corporate leaders behave in a respectful, inspiring, common-sense, and thoughtful way. Today, I’m reminded of an experience back in 2004 [...]

58 comments continue reading

Not Accountable, Not Responsible

by Pete Abilla August 9, 2008

Team size can make a big difference in the success of your service or product. What is counterintuitive for most people is that the larger the team size, the lower the likelihood of success for your service or product.  Why? Entropy can set in and large teams are inherently bad vehicles for communication. More insipid, [...]

1 comment continue reading

Lost-in-Translation in Large Teams

by Pete Abilla February 24, 2008

Team size can make a big difference in the success of your service or product.  What is counterintuitive for most people is that the larger the team size, the lower the likelihood of success for your service or product.  Why?  Entropy can set in and large teams are inherently bad vehicles for communication.  In what [...]

0 comments continue reading

Aza Raskin on Cooperation & Fence Throwing

by Pete Abilla November 7, 2007
This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Aza Raskin

Aza Raskin is the founder of Humanized, the son of Macintosh inventor, Jef Raskin, and an all-around good guy.  A few months ago, Aza Raskin agreed to answer several readers’ questions.   In today’s post, Aza Raskin tackles a reader’s question about Product Management, cooperations with other groups, throwing stuff over the fence, why large teams [...]

1 comment continue reading

Jeff Bezos on Lean and Six Sigma

by Pete Abilla October 7, 2007

It’s been a while now since I was employed at Amazon.com, but I still greatly admire Jeff Bezos and Amazon.  Culturally, it was hands-down the most brutal and cut-throat environment, but one that really brought out the best in you — not from a people or relationship perspective, but from an innovation and business-thinking perspective.  [...]

5 comments continue reading

Amazon.com’s 2006 Holiday Performance

by Pete Abilla January 11, 2007

Peak Season at Amazon is crazy, fun, and exciting. That is a time when “all hands on deck” really comes into play and everybody is pitching in to help. It’s also a time that really tests the amazon click-to-ship system and overall Operations, to make sure that product flows from warehouses to the customer in [...]

0 comments continue reading

Why Large Teams Suck

by Pete Abilla October 16, 2006

This post is to reiterate what I’ve said many times before: Large teams, for the most part, suck. Large teams are necessary if the product or service requires it, but they genrally suck. Below are my reasons for this very general and somewhat unsubstantiated claim: I’ve written about the importance of team size before, here, [...]

1 comment continue reading

1 of 212