Error Correction Process at Amazon

When I joined Amazon in 1999, our software and fulfillment network was swamped by the growth in demand. We were barely surviving. We couldn't be operationally excellent until we dug ourselves out of that hole and built systems and processes to meet the demand. Fast forward two decades, and Amazon is an example of Operational Excellence. It didn't happen in one day, week, month, or year… it was a series of steps, processes, actions, and decisions over many years. One of the steps we took to get there was to apply proven techniques from other excellent companies, namely Toyota. One of the methods they invented at Toyota is the “Five Whys” method for root cause analysis of failures. Here is how we used it and a template for you to use: Whenever there was a significant failure in the customer experience, we would run a formal investigation. This meant not just asking why the surface-level effect occurred, but also why the condition that allowed it existed in the first place, why the condition that allowed THAT condition existed, and so on. Asking “why” five times was a forcing function that pushed teams to reach the root cause. Then, once we knew exactly what happened, why it happened, and why our processes, rules, or systems allowed it, we made a plan to fix the root cause so it could never happen again. By the way, committing to following through on those two steps — much easier said than done. The output was a CoE (Correction of Error) document (6 pages or less) that described the issue, the actual root cause (which was often very different than the surface-level failure), and the long-term fix. These documents were not optional and they would be reviewed at the VP level or in some cases, the CEO level. Here is how to structure a CoE doc (copy and paste this into a doc): — [Insert Topic Here] Correction of Errors 1. Description of problem and its impact a. Description b. Data Collected to demonstrate the problem c. Customer Impact d. Financial Impact 2. Root causes (use the 5 whys method) a. Why did the error occur? b. Why did that condition exist? c. Why did the above condition exist? d. Why did the above condition exist? e. Why did the above condition exist? Answering these questions five levels deep should lead you to the root cause of the issue, though the tool does not tell you what questions to ask or how to find the answers, so it is not a guarantee of success. 3. Corrective actions taken a. b. c. etc, 4. Lessons learned (bad and good) Here are the errors we made and/or hard lessons we learned: a. b. c. d. e. Here are some things we did well: a. b. c. To better understand the CoE process, read a sample CoE report on our website: https://lnkd.in/gF-CPb8s

“I pressed the button, broke the system, and caused the impact. Will this impact my performance or promotion?” asked a junior engineer. The answer is no. But there is nuance: At Amazon, we have a process to learn from mistakes. It uncovers gaps instead of pointing fingers. That might be rare, even unique to Amazon, but it’s how it should be everywhere. It isn’t a free pass to operate recklessly or avoid responsibility. No matter how careful and prepared we are, mistakes will eventually happen. What matters is how you show up afterward. First, did you escalate early? Did you bring in the right stakeholders quickly and explain what was happening with honesty? Second, did you go as far as needed to fully understand what failed and why? Last, did you make sure the right fixes were implemented and mechanisms created? Did you personally ensure those action items were closed? Making mistakes is human. Turning them into learnings that strengthen systems and prevent repeats is growth. Making sure everyone feels safe to be fully honest in this process is great management. Applying those learnings across larger organizations and the company is leadership.

Five Whys: One of the powerful lessons I learned at Amazon is how to ask the “Five Whys” behind incidents. A well-written COE drives root cause analysis through a blameless, customer obsessed process that helps continuous improvement, knowledge sharing, and actionable outcomes to prevent the recurrence of issues. A sample COE typically looks like this: Issue: Customer orders for Product X were delayed by 48 hours due to failure in the fulfillment workflow. Five Whys: Why was the customer order delayed? Because the order did not move from “Packed” to “Shipped” in the fulfillment system. Why did the order not move from “Packed” to “Shipped”? Because the handoff job that updates shipment status failed and did not retry. Why did the handoff job fail and not retry? Because a dependency API (Carrier Service API) returned a malformed response, and the job had no error-handling logic for this case. Why was there no error-handling logic for malformed API responses? Because the API schema validation was assumed to be consistent, and test coverage did not include schema variations. Why was test coverage incomplete? Because the ownership boundary between the fulfillment team and the carrier integration team was unclear, and no single team was accountable for schema validation. Root Cause: Lack of clear ownership for API schema validation resulted in missing error handling, which caused the fulfillment job to fail silently and delay shipments. Corrective Actions: Add schema validation and retry logic in fulfillment job (owner: Fulfillment team, ETA: 2 weeks). Establish single-threaded owner for carrier API contract validation (owner: Carrier Integration team, ETA: 1 week). Add malformed API responses to integration test suite (owner: QA team, ETA: 2 weeks). As you can see, this helps you get to the root of the issue without assigning blame and focuses on fixing the process. Side note: I’ve applied the Five Whys in my personal life as well—it’s a great framework.

Avoiding failure limits your potential. The right system turns mistakes into growth. Amazon’s 6-step Correction of Error (COE) is a powerful process for transforming setbacks into growth. The best part? You can apply this too any time things don't turn out as planned (whether at work or personal life) Here’s how to adopt it: 1️⃣ Identify the Problem ↳ Face the issue head-on. Define it clearly and quantify the impact to prioritize action. 2️⃣ Take Corrective Actions ↳ Solve the issue quickly. Document immediate steps for resolution. 3️⃣ Perform a Root Cause Analysis ↳ Ask “Why?” until you uncover the true cause. Surface-level fixes won’t stop the problem from recurring. 4️⃣ Develop Solutions & Assign Accountability ↳ Build systems that prevent recurrence. Empower the team with ownership of specific actions. 5️⃣ Review & Share the Learnings ↳ Don’t hoard insights. Be transparent. Sharing insights transforms individual errors into collective strength. 6️⃣ Follow Up to Ensure Implementation ↳ Make progress stick. Assign someone to track progress and maintain momentum. In my experience, Steps 5 and 6 are where transformation happens. Sharing mistakes creates a culture of trust and resilience. Following through ensures lasting progress and continuous growth. Growth doesn’t require perfection - it requires persistence. What’s your strategy for turning mistakes into growth? Drop your thoughts below! ____________ ♻️ Repost to inspire a culture of learning through mistakes. 📌 For more actionable insights, follow Jorge Luis Pando

Half of the internet was down due to an outage in us-aws-east-1 And Hundreds of on-call engineers got paged.. Amazon.com, Perplexity, Duolingo, Snap Inc., Substack are just a few examples of the many services that were completely offline. Even some features of the TopCoding App were temporarily unavailable. 1. Context on the scale of us-east-1 Many people don’t realize that us-east-1 is the largest and oldest AWS region, hosting a massive portion of the world’s internet services, which makes it critical for the global infrastructure. 2. What happens inside the company (in this case, Amazon) during such an incident 2.1. The on-call engineer for the team gets paged as soon as the anomaly is detected 2.2. They review metrics and dashboards to determine the scope of impact. Percent-based metrics are used because they more accurately show how critical the situation is 2.3. If the impact exceeds a certain threshold, the issue is escalated to the team’s leadership to ensure that the right decisions are made quickly and in a coordinated manner 2.4. The Root Cause Analysis process begins. The most common scenarios include: a recent deployment introduced a regression, an external dependency was affected, a new edge case was triggered by real users in production, etc 2.5. Once the cause is identified, the team looks for the fastest recovery path, such as: rolling back the latest release, scaling up affected services, adding temporary logic to handle or bypass the edge case, etc 2.6. The fix is deployed and the team monitors metrics and logs closely until all systems are fully recovered 2.7. Afterwards, a Postmortem is conducted, detailing what happened, what worked well, what didn’t and what preventive measures will be implemented to avoid recurrence 3. Cross-team coordination In major outages, multiple teams usually respond simultaneously - working in parallel to determine whether the issue is local or global 4. Communication with customers While engineers work on recovery, customer communication is prepared in parallel. Amusingly (and ironically), during this outage, Statuspage - the platform many companies use to report their own service status - was also down, so many companies appeared "all green" simply because there was no way to update the page 5. Key Takeaways There are no perfect systems - every outage is an opportunity to learn and improve. What matters most is reacting quickly, escalating effectively and ensuring that the best possible decisions are made in the shortest possible time. Personally, I’ve learned the most during these high-pressure, critical situations. They shape a mindset and reaction pattern that are invaluable for any project. Getting involved during critical incidents within your team is one of the best ways to learn - it’s hard, stressful and often avoided by many engineers, but it’s exactly how the best technical instincts and skills are built.