Amazon spins a giant roulette wheel every week and whoever’s group it lands on needs to do a presentation
Amazon Web Services’ leadership spins The Wheel to choose a random manager to present at the weekly meeting, meaning every manager has to be prepared to present
By Matt Weinberger
Amazon is famous for trying new techniques to keep its meetings orderly and productive — CEO Jeff Bezos keeps meetings small by encouraging the “two-pizza rule,” meaning never have a meeting where two pizzas couldn’t feed the entire group.
For years, says the blog, AWS has held a regular meeting between senior leadership and individual product groups, with every manager sharing metrics and other updates in a 15-minute slot. However, as AWS has grown from two services to 120, “it has become a big meeting,” the blog post explains.
There’s simply not enough time for everyone to present. And yet, AWS wanted to make sure that everyone came to the meeting totally prepared, even if they weren’t officially slated to talk.
“A simple roster would have ensured that every team reported regularly, but we wanted every team to be prepared to report every week, and their leaders to know the details (whether or not they were called to present in the big forum),” says the blog. “And thus The Wheel was born.”