The dogs not barking framework Amazon uses to make bets

In its yearly planning, Amazon uses the dogs not barking framework to make bets for the future.

What is it?

It’s from the legendary Sherlock Holmes mystery, where Sherlock finds out that the dog wasn’t barking on the night of the murder.

Which meant that the murderer was someone close to the family.

And then, Sherlock solves the case and goes to save yet another day.

But in the business sense, it can mean multiple things.

👉What are you not hearing - seeing that might be a clue to something else?

If there are no bug alerts coming in. Does it mean that your software is bugless?

Or that the system that should notify of these isn’t working.

If you are doing customer research and a common objection is that the price is too high, it might not mean that the price is too high. It might mean that the value is too low.

Or the way you communicate your value is poor.  But that’s not being said.

👉Or in a more strategic sense, what’s missing from the market?

What are the shifts in the world that we see happening but aren’t in mainstream discussions yet?

What could we do that we and no one else is doing?

What the customers might want but no one talks about?

📣The goal of this framework is to pay attention to what isn’t there, not just what is.

And deliberately seek out these things. To make high-risk/high-reward bets