It’s been 1 year since I was laid off from Shopify. It was initially frustrating and I was surprised at what I learned from being bored. This time also provided an opportunity for personal and professional growth. At times it was challenging to navigate this period of "fun'employment," it's was overall a positive experience. As many layoffs are still happening I thought it could be helpful to others to hear about my experience. Hopefully it is encouraging.

1️⃣ Time for Reflection and Growth: Being laid off, while unexpected, opened up the opportunity to spend more time with family, engage in hobbies, and reflect on long-term career goals. This period allowed for personal growth. I learned to wingboard, took a Python refresher course, and spent quality time with my family.

2️⃣ Importance of Networking: The layoff from Shopify also highlighted the importance of networking. Sharing my experience on LinkedIn helped connect with others in similar situations and provided valuable insights. It also helped to build relationships with new people in my network and rekindle old ones.

3️⃣ Building Resilience: While the layoff initially brought feelings of shame and disappointment. It’s crucial to view it as a learning experience. My focus changed to be based on personal and professional development rather than dwelling on negative emotions.

4️⃣ Embracing Change: It is important for me to acknowledge that tech companies are constantly innovating and evolving, leading to frequent changes in direction. These changes can sometimes result in layoffs, as seen with the sale of Shopify Logistics to Flexport.

5️⃣ Looking Forward: While the layoff from Shopify marks the end of a chapter. It also marks the beginning of new opportunities. The time was a great opportunity reflect on skills and experiences, explore new industries, and build a stronger professional network. Remember that tech companies are always looking for talented individuals, and this layoff can be a stepping stone to a new and exciting career path.

Post 1 The WBR is formative part of Amazon

WBR (Weekly Business Review) is a formative part of Amazon. Over the next couple weeks I’m going to do some posts on creating metrics and getting the most out of them.

Let’s start with a little bit of a backstory of my experience of metrics before joining Amazon. It’s likely similar to most people’s experiences and many companies.

Prior to Amazon my view was fewer reports was best. My team at Home Depot processed a ton of weekly metrics. Many of them inherited over many people and many years. My goal as the manager was reduce our reporting load and get to the highest ROI of my teams time. Success looked like fewest metrics with the most actions. To do this we used a reduction approach. We created reports of metrics and emailed them off to big groups of people without knowing how or if they were used. So we stopped sending out many of our reports to see who spoke up. This gave us a gage of what was most useful and we drop about 75% of our reports. My view was fewer report tied to key metrics was best but my view was about to change.

My first Amazon WBR meeting. It was almost 100 pages of detailed metrics. We were in a room with multiple VPs of large organization getting into details of a variation in a number from the prior week on page 47. It seemed like an insane high cost meeting with so many big leaders in the room. I was thinking why were they getting into such detail. Aren’t they missing the big picture? Couldn’t someone summarize it for them? What if they just had a balanced dashboard, life we be so much easier?

I missed the point. The Amazon WBR wasn’t about easy consumable metrics. It was about learning from the variation in the details. Leader were teaching and also learning from the weekly ritual.

The WBR process was one of the most important things I took from my time from Amazon. It showed me what data driven really meant. It lined up with how I naturally thought about data but it challenges how I thought about reporting on that data. Minimizing reporting to slides of actionable items misses the teaching and learning moments.

Whats coming up next? I’ll be posting some thoughts from my time at Amazon and how metrics and the WBR shaped things. I have also been reading a lot from other Amazonian and will combine others insights. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts. The good and the bad.

Post 2: Find your WBR metrics leveraging Input and Output Metrics

Starting a weekly business review (WBR) process can seem overwhelming. It’s hard to know where to start. If you are worried this won’t work for my team because we are a non profit, we don’t have data, and this isn’t going to work for us for X and Y reasons. Try to start small. With any new ritual or habit it is best to start scrappy then pivot quickly to what is working.

Well what is a simple metric to start with… It is going to be different based on your team and business needs but one key thing to focus on is input metrics over output metrics.

What are input and output metrics? Input metrics are the things that you, your team or company control that you believe will improve an output metric over the long term. What is an output metric? An output is the outcome you are trying to change but don’t have direct control over. That sounds really confusing, right…

Here is a personal example of input and output metrics. I want to get healthier (output). This is a little too vague, so first I want to define an output measurement of health. This could be body weight, body fat percent, some blood test results, personal best for a run or lift you are doing. This is your output metrics but just tracking this gives you some interesting and informative data but not super actionable. For example if you were to gain or lose weight over the prior week but you didn’t remember what you ate or exercises you did you would have a hard time knowing the action needed to move the output metric in the direction you want. So in comes the input metrics. This could be the number of steps taken, calories consumed, macronutrients intake, workouts completed, reps done, time doing an activity and so on. These are things you control and you believe will lead to a better outcome overtime.

Many businesses can tend to over focus on output metrics and lose sight or don’t know their input metrics. On the flip side of that, many tech teams know their input metrics very well but don’t know if it is moving the output over the long term leading to some local optimization that misses the bigger point. Knowing both is best. From the above example if you know your caloric intake, steps and workout (input metrics) really well but didn’t know if you were getting closer to your goal (output metric) you kind of missed the point. Good leaders know both really well.

Getting started can be as easy as a simple google sheet and keying in some records of key numbers you see as your input and outputs. Start collecting these each week and compiling some info. This is the first two steps in an important frame called DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control). You don’t need a super complex data system to get started.

If you have a data warehouse setup at your company there are a couple easy first steps. Define what you think your input and output metrics are and socialize with your team to get feedback. You already have the 2nd step, Measure, partly done. So getting alignment on the Define step is most important for you.

Side note at this point it is not the right time to start improving things. Stay focused on getting aligned on define and measuring. Improvements at this step without alignment will lead to fake news and short term improvements. Focus on getting defined metrics and a process to measure them first.

There are a couple more posts in this series so follow along. I’d love to hear what other people have learned about input and output metrics. Some failure or success stories would be great to hear (mostly failure stories please…)

Post 3 Your first WBR meeting

Building out and having your first WBR can seem like a tough first step but your goal is to start with something easy. Most WBR reviews have simple beginnings. In this post I’ll outline the basics of aligning on metrics and what a kick off meeting could look like.

A kick off review should be focused on do we have the right metrics. These metrics should point your org in the right direction. In the review I would suggest having people come to a meeting (or could be an async) with 3–5 input metrics they believe would drive a key output metric. In this session I would have the attendees group the metrics into themes. If the group lands on 3–4 themes that is great if it has more than 4 themes it is worth cutting it down.

If you have too many input metric themes… An easy way I have found is to do a vote on the themes to rate them. First, the 1 that people think has to be there and second vote on which one that could be dropped. If you are in an IRL number the themes and have people a paper and pen or even your fingers (hopefully you don’t have more than 10 themes) and have everyone share their votes at the same time to help limit bias of the group. I have seen these meetings turn into a HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) and getting the group buy in is important. If you do this on zoom you can use the chat section with and do a quick 3,2,1 count down to have people share their response all at once. This will give you a chance to discuss misalignments with the group or move quickly if the team is aligned. By the end of this you should have 2–3 key metrics to start with.

The next step would be assigning two owners (maybe a 3rd) to build a simple sheet and chart (I’ll talk about this more in my next post). First, who is the business or tech owner of this metric, second an unbiased owner who will confirm the metric calculation is sound and good at calling out issues (at Amazon this was normally finance) and third could be a data owner that will be in charge of gathering the data in cases the business owner doesn’t access or knowledge of the data systems. Side note if you are a smaller company or one person operation, starting really simple could be just keying input metrics into a google sheet weekly and do a weekly review and see what you learn.

At the end of the first meeting you should have aligned on 2–3 input metrics, owners of the metrics and a date\time of the first WBR review.

Best of luck on your kick off WBR meeting.

Post 4 WBR Basic Format and Meeting

In my prior post, I talked about how to pick a couple input metrics to start off your WBR. This post is about simple guidance on building out a spreadsheet to get started. If you are thinking, a spreadsheet, why not something more automated. Right now you want something simple to get started. You will be tweaking and messing around with what you show many times at this stage. Spreadsheets are the most flexible and familiar for most people making it a great tool at this stage.

The spreadsheet should be simple. At Amazon, it was most common to show the prior 6 weeks of data and then prior 13 months. This would allow for seeing trends at the week, month and year over year level. This was shown as a two line charts at the week and monthly level (could also be one chart if the scales of the metric is similar at week and month level). Following the chart would be a table with the numbers for the chart with addition to week over week (WoW) as an absolute number and percentage change and year over year (YoY).

You can stop there for the first couple weeks of the meeting. If you have some supporting metrics you can add those afterwards to the table but not the chart. Supporting metrics normally start out as a logical cut of the metric. For example, by region, business unit, or customer group. These cuts of the metrics may bring some easy insights.

The goal at this stage is to get in the practice of capturing and analyzing the data as a group. It’s still worth resisting taking action as you are moving along the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) process and you are starting to analyze steps. After a couple weeks you could be ready to improve and control. So focus on having the right metrics and be happy with the accuracy of the data.

Post 5 WBR Control and Improve Phase

I’m still recovering from the GE Six Sigma Black Belt days (Sorry Six Sigma fans out there).

One of the things that created a lot of value from Six Sigma in the WBR (weekly business reviews) was DMAIC.

DMAIC is an acronym that stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. In my prior posts, I talked about how to get started with your WBR. At this stage, I assume, you have started having a WBR meeting for a couple weeks. Now you have started thinking we understand the data better as a group now what. If you have narrowed down your metrics to a good one you should be able to do a “So What?” test. If it’s a good metric you should start having ideas on why it matters to your customers and some ideas of what would improve it. If you are here, it is time to move from DM to AIC in the DMAIC steps.

The AIC (Analyze, Improve, and Control) you are looking for variation in metric that would lead you to improve and control. The improve and control steps tend to be two things: execution errors (i.e. we messed something up we want to fix) or project opportunities (i.e. we need to build or implement something that will drive improvement).

It is common for people to find the easiest thing to blame from last week when a metrics goes in the wrong direction then stop looking. This tends to lead to a new hot topic each week and chasing a metric. A common Amazon method to stop this is called “Bridging a metric”. Bridging metrics is explaining the gap of a metric compared to ideal or perfect. So you cannot stop once you found the first biggest error or opportunity but when you have Bridged the metric to perfect and explained the issues completely.

Bridging a metric can be a power tool but it also can turn into an unhealthy blame game. Most errors and misses could be mapped to many teams or systems but in this process it normally lands on one team to own. I’ll talk more in a future post about the bad and problematic side of the WBR process but this seems to be a common one. Finding blaming vs solving the problem.

Post 6 WBR gone wrong

The WBR meeting can go bad and be a ritual that tears teams apart. Bad WBRs normally just don’t add a lot of value and consume a large amount of time. Terrible WBRs are meetings that don’t bring improvement but are filled with fear, politics and blame.

The more tame WBR issues look like:

1. Meeting is focused on normal performance not variations
2. Stopping at the first problem found and not understand the problem more completely
3. Bridging a metric completely but no action is taken
4. Metrics are summarized at a level to high to action and\or only focused on output metrics
5. Coming up with an explanation in the meeting. If you don’t have an answer your best response is “great questions and we will follow up after the meeting”.
6. Team isn’t learning from the meeting
7. Always “improving” things and looking at output metrics and not understanding input changes that were made
8. Teams spend more time prepping for WBRs than actioning or building.

These are some examples of WBRs behaviors that make WBR meeting terrible for your teams and moral:

1. People asking questions to waste time so their section won’t be covered
2. People asking questions in others section to show off
3. Someone asking overly probing or blaming questions in other sections
4. Attacking or beating up a team or person instead of the problem

Any other examples of things to watch out for?

Post 7 The Super Power of Anecdotes

Adding Empathy, Drives Customer Centric View, Uncovers Blindspots

WBR (Weekly Business Review) is all about the numbers, right? Step in the Super Power of adding Anecdotes to your WBR.

What is an anecdote? Per the dictionary it’s “a short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person”. More or less how your customer feels about the data.

Adding some anecdotes from customers is a powerful way to bring empathy, the customer’s voice and uncovers blindspots in your number driven WBR.

Anecdotes add a human voice and context to a problem that you have been solving solely with numbers. It can motivate people to action because words from customers mean more. It can show how a group of systems making the “right” choice can compound to a bad outcome to a customer uncovering a blind spot. It can be helpful to show when your metric is missing a large “edge” case.

“When the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There is something wrong with the way that you are measuring it”

-Jeff Bezos

How do I add anecdotes to your WBRs? The easiest way is to ask customer support in your area to share problems in the WBR process. Or set up a process or system to collect feedback from customers. You can use extreme examples in the data to trigger someone to research what happened and gather anecdotes to share back during the WBR.

Anecdotes can be a great super power for your teams but it can also be over used and generate a ton of noise. I have seen teams lose focus and only chase anecdotes down. So use this tool but don’t over do it.

When I started business school I came across Crossfit and tried to do the workouts on my own. I failed miserably not knowing what half of the movements were and doing the other movements with such bad form I almost hurt myself. I decided to join a Crossfit “Box” and found out it was too expensive for grad school students in debt. So I told myself after I paid off my school loans I’d treat myself with a Crossfit membership.

In 2013, about 2 years after finishing my MBA, I paid off my last student loan and joined Foundation Crossfit in Seattle. It was a great experience but the part I loved the most was the Olympic Lifting (the snatch and clean and jerk). After doing Crossfit for 2 years I changed my focus to the Olympic lifts. I wanted to share my journey of lifting because like most things in life it was not a clear or straight path. I wanted to write this post to share how Olympic lifting has taught me life lessons that have transformed my personal life and helped with my career.

Novice Effect

First the Novice Effect. I’m a proud person and don’t like to fail. When starting anything new you are going to fail and that was hard for me to accept. My natural response is to run to the things I’m better at. I’m fairly cheap and motivated by money. So paying for unlimited training sessions at the start kept me coming back for at least the first month to make sure I got my money’s worth. The awesome part of the Novice Effect is you see results quickly because you really stink :). My first snatch I couldn’t complete with an empty bar (20kgs) within the first month I was able to get up to 50kgs. Improvements like this are very motivating but taper off after a couple months and now I’m excited about a couple kilogram improvement a year.

The Novice Effect has crossed over into my personal and work life. For example being a new parent has many Novice Effects. You fail at first but learn quickly. I’m now more comfortable jumping into new things that I don’t feel comfortable with because I know I will only get better.

Muscle Memory

At 5am my alarm goes off. I go make coffee and pack my bag to go to the gym. Before starting a lifting program I would not wake up this early unless I had to make a flight or had an important meeting to prep for. Repeating the same thing over and over has created Muscle Memory. By doing the same things at the same time everyday, I limit the willpower used to get up early and complete a lifting program.

At work, I have created similar processes by blocking off weekly and daily tasks in my calendar to build routine. This limits willpower needed to complete tasks that are needed but I don’t always find enjoyable. In my personal life, my wife and I have setup a weekly marriage meeting (How and Why To Hold a Weekly Marriage Meeting) which is not always something we want to do or have time for but creating the muscle memory helps do it when your life is too “busy” for these critically important routines.

Outside Feedback

At the gym I am paying for the use of the weights and space but also Outside Feedback from a coach. My natural reaction to feedback was to shut down but for some reason when you pay someone to give it to you, it’s ok. Getting feedback multiple times a week at the gym has helped me adapted at receiving feedback. This adaptation has allowed me to listen to my employees, peers, spouse and others feedback. I’ve changed my mindset from being wrong to being coached. If you’re being coached you are expected to change and it limits the pain of failing.

The beauty of a coach is they can see what you are doing wrong. As the athlete you can only feel what is going on and feelings are hard to gauge and correct. Your coach sees a different perspective and gives you quick queues that can help you improve right away. A coach is able to help provide you corrections early to limit forming bad habits that will plague you. I now seek feedback at home and work and see more value in other inputs.

Next Step

Next step for me is to sign up for a Master Olympic Lifting competition. The next step for you may be paying for a coach, setting up some new routine or rituals to build muscle memory or becoming more understanding of your own failures.

Huge thanks to Foundations Barbell Club and Kneesout for your help along my journey.