Amazon LP(16) Flashcards
Think Big
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
- Give me an example where you provided an out of the box solution to a problem.*
- Tell me about a time you took a calculated risk in order to achieve a professional goal. What were the tradeoffs? What was the outcome?*
- Tell me about a time you took a big risk and it failed. What did you learn? What would you do differently?*
- Tell me about a time you went way beyond the scope of the project and delivered.*
- Tell me about your proudest professional achievement.*
- Give me an example of a radical approach to a problem you proposed. What was the problem and why did you feel it required a completely different way of thinking about it? Was your approach successful?*
- How do you drive adoption for your vision/ideas? How do you know how well your idea or vision has been adopted by other teams or partners? Give a specific example highlighting one of your ideas.*
- Tell me about time you were working on an initiative or goal and saw an opportunity to do something much bigger than the initial focus.*
- Tell me about a time you looked at a key process that was working well and questioned whether it was still the right one. What assumptions were you questioning and why? Did you end up making a change to the process?*
“Create a self contained team to Improve CSAT for the Public Sector Team (DBA, Change Team and Support) This contributed to the CSAT improvement from 75% to 95%”
Customer Obsession
Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
When you’re working with a large number of customers, it’s tricky to deliver excellent service to all of them. How do you prioritize different customer needs?
Tell me about a time you handled a difficult customer. What did you do? How did you manage the customer? What was her/his reaction? What was the outcome?
Most of us at one time have felt frustrated or impatient when dealing with customers. Can you tell me about a time when you felt this way and how you dealt with it?
When was a time you had to balance the needs of the customer with the needs of the business? How did you approach the situation? What were your actions? What was the end result?
- Give me an example of a change you implemented in your current team or organization to meet the needs of your customers. What has been the result?*
- Tell me about a time a customer wanted one thing but you felt they needed something else. What was the situation and what was the action you took?*
- When do you think it’s ok to push back or say no to an unreasonable customer request?*
- Tell me about a time you used customer feedback to change the way you worked. Why did you take the action you did? What was the outcome?*
- Tell me about a time you had to compromise in order to satisfy a customer.*
- How do you get to an understanding of what the customer’s needs are?*
- How do you honestly pursue customer feedback, not just solicit them for compliments?*
- How do you wow your customers?*
- How do you develop client relationships?*
CADMV / Workday Story (10K user Impact, built BMC loyalty, Appreciation from CTO)
ST:
Customer ran into a blocker w a Third party app, which needed a change to their instance in BMC SaaS env. 2. Challenge : Its Offhours and no prior change approval in place. 3. If we dont do this, 10K users will nto able to use the system after an hour.
A
:Called BOSS got approval. 2. Opened NOC bridge, got the right OnCall eng to help. 3. Issue resolved and validated
R
Avoided 10K User Impact 2. CSAT scores Improved and stayed consistently above 95% 3. Nice testimonial from the CTO.
Ownership
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job.”
- Provide an example of when you personally demonstrated ownership.*
- Tell me about a time you went above and beyond.*
- Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility. Why was it important? What was the outcome?*
- Describe a project or idea (not necessarily your own) that was implemented primarily because of your efforts. What was your role? What was the outcome?*
- Give an example of when you saw a peer struggling and decided to step in and help. What was the situation and what actions did you take? What was the outcome?*
CADMV / Workday Story (10K user Impact, built BMC loyalty, Appreciation from CTO)
ST:
Customer ran into a blocker w a Third party app, which needed a change to their instance in BMC SaaS env. 2. Challenge : Its Offhours and no prior change approval in place. 3. If we dont do this, 10K users will nto able to use the system after an hour.
A
:Called BOSS got approval. 2. Opened NOC bridge, got the right OnCall eng to help. 3. Issue resolved and validated
R
Avoided 10K User Impact 2. CSAT scores Improved and stayed consistently above 95% 3. Nice testimonial from the CTO.
Invent and Simplify
Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here.” As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.
- Tell me about a time when you invented something.*
- What improvements have you made at your current company?*
- Tell me about a time when you gave a simple solution to a complex problem.*
- Tell me about a time you had to think outside the box (think creatively) to close a sale or sell your product.*
- What is the most innovative project you’ve worked on?*
Story 1: Project Sonic - Health check process automation – (Challenge – No drift management, best practices and sizing guidelines were not followed – reduced from 7 hrs to <= 15 mts(200 X6) = 1200 hrs/month or 14000 hrs/yr or 39 days/yr.
Story 2: Software VPN
Story 3: Thousand eyes.
Are Right, A Lot
Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
Story1: GovCloud missed a Project item – readjust ETA – Lessons learnt (Impact avoided service credits $500 - $1 Million, On-Time)
Story2: Release before DR readiness.
Learn and Be Curious
Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.
Hire and Develop the Best
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
DevOps org building the team from scratch, one of them was our customer.
Insist on the Highest Standards
Leaders have relentlessly high standards — many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
Customer service Improvement programs for Public sector and Federal Customers.
- CSAT scores Improved and stayed consistently above 95% and NPS 100% 3. Nice testimonial from the CTO.
Bias for Action
Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
Story2: Release before DR readiness.
Frugality
Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.
“Create a self contained team to Improve CSAT for the Public Sector Team (DBA, Change Team and Support) This contributed to the CSAT improvement from 75% to 95%”
Earn Trust
Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
- Tell me about a time you had to earn trust quickly.*
- Building trust can be difficult to achieve at times. Tell me about how you’ve effectively built trusting working relationships with others on your team.*
- Describe a time when you significantly contributed to improving morale and productivity on your team. What were the underlying problems and their causes? How did you prevent them from negatively impacting the team in the future?*
- Give an example of a time where you were not able to meet a commitment to a team member. What was the commitment and what prevented you from meeting it? What was the outcome and what did you learn from it?*
- Describe a time when you needed the cooperation of a peer or peers who were resistant to what you were trying to do. What did you do? What was the outcome?*
- Tell me about a piece of direct feedback you recently gave to a colleague. How did he or she respond?*
- How do you like to receive feedback from coworkers or managers?*
- Tell me about a time when someone (peer, teammate, supervisor) criticized you about a piece of work/analysis that you delivered. How did you react? What was the outcome?*
- Tell me about a time when you had to tell someone a harsh truth.*
- Tell me about a time you had to communicate a big change in direction for which you anticipated people would have a lot of concerns. How did you handle questions and/or resistance? Were you able to get people comfortable with the change?*
- How do you convince someone who is resistant to what you’re trying to do?*
Story 1: Ashish out sick, team member not pulling his weight.
This recently happened 2 months agao, one of the top performers in the project, was not delivering his tasks on time and was taking time offs w/o much notice, like suddenly the previous night or the early mornings and we were at the end of the qtr and its a busy time, lot of new Customer Orders get signed during that, and was causing frustration in the team
Story2: Northropp, OTECH story
Story 3: With upgrade team
Story 4: VP Capacity planning.
Dive Deep
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
Story 1: Project Sonic - Health check process automation – (Challenge – No drift management, best practices and sizing guidelines were not followed – reduced from 7 hrs to <= 15 mts(200 X6) = 1200 hrs/month or 14000 hrs/yr or 39 days/yr.
Story 2: Software VPN
Story 3: Thousand eyes.
Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
VP Capcity planning started a cost saving iniitative, and sent to the complete SaaS Org email to stop onboarding POC cusotmers in Public clouds and set them up in BMC Colos.
Action: Used past data on some issues relating to hosting in wrong DCs, and some cusotmer can become real customers etc., and pushed back with data in a 1:1. He was convinced and we agreed on a middle ground and after that he started inviting me in exec meetings like that and our relationship improved and I earned his trust.
Deliver Results
Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
Empasize w team and data,
Story: 7 Day SLA
CSAT: 75 -> 95%
Ops 99 to 99.9%
CRE Award
Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer
Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere.
CADMV / Workday Story (10K user Impact, built BMC loyalty, Appreciation from CTO)
ST:
Customer ran into a blocker w a Third party app, which needed a change to their instance in BMC SaaS env. 2. Challenge : Its Offhours and no prior change approval in place. 3. If we dont do this, 10K users will nto able to use the system after an hour.
A
:Called BOSS got approval. 2. Opened NOC bridge, got the right OnCall eng to help. 3. Issue resolved and validated
R
Avoided 10K User Impact 2. CSAT scores Improved and stayed consistently above 95% 3. Nice testimonial from the CTO.
