No-bullshit tenets for faster decision-making

...and whatever you do, <i>please</i> don&#x27;t call them &quot;tenants&quot; in your design docs. And if I may add another request (not an &quot;ask&quot;)... learn the difference between <i>segue</i> and <i>Segway</i>.<p>Reading anything that plays that fast and loose with language makes me think that the author plays equally fast and loose with other aspects of their writing that I&#x27;m not qualified to judge (in a way similar to how we can spot errors in movies that depict hackers, but are more likely to &quot;buy&quot; whatever we see on a medical drama), so it makes me generally distrustful of the material.<p>Am I being pedantic? I don&#x27;t think I am. I think clear communication is super important.<p>Edit: my comment is inspired by, but not directly related to, the article.

I have used tenets quite extensively in product development. They were introduced by a bunch of ex-Amazonians. At Amazon, tenets seem to be very popular, see [1].<p>The article is a good first introduction to the framework, although I have to admit that I found the tenets mentioned in the article not very convincing.<p>Thinking about how you would finish the sentences &quot;We would never do...&quot; and &quot;We would always do...&quot; is a good way to start drafting tenets.<p>A good quality check for a tenet is to ask if the tenet could be used for decision making, for example in a heated team discussion.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5raEKA57PMY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5raEKA57PMY</a>

&quot;We value case-by-case reasoning over general principles.&quot;

That link to coordination models is good. Wish I had that when writing <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;visitmy.website&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;06&#x2F;users-trust-delivery&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;visitmy.website&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;06&#x2F;users-trust-delivery&#x2F;</a>

Just say no to these mental shortcuts and hire good people and trust them to do the right thing. If you need tenets just to stay engaged at your day job you are either incompetent or you&#x27;re not at the right job.<p>Or in the language of this silly article:<p>&quot;Hire good people and trust them.&quot;

Move fast and break down people

A fun exercise would be to make up tenets for existing companies. Let me start:<p>Tesla<p>* We value aspirational storytelling over the &quot;truth&quot;. [We might make it true later!]<p>Apple<p>* We think different, except when it comes to creating a non-toxic environment.<p>Facebook<p>* We value making money and engagement over democracy, people&#x27;s lives, or their mental health.<p>Google<p>* We value starting things over making them successful. [We will definitely kill it in a few years, but don&#x27;t worry, we&#x27;ll try again later.] * Don&#x27;t be evil, unless you&#x27;re an executive or it will make the company a lot of money.

The only no-BS tenet for business decision making is: &quot;will this make the business money or position the business to better make money.&quot;<p>All the rest are n-th order effects in the decision making process. The quicker you come to grips with this, the better. Everything bends to that. It defines the rules and the exceptions to the rules for all other tenets you may derive. Having other principles is just PR to defer to so people forget what they&#x27;re actually doing. &quot;We make products to help people&quot;, &quot;we value quality over speed&quot;, whatever. It&#x27;s all a waste of time and those tenets will change depending on if it makes the business money or not.<p>They <i>can</i> provide the framework for the model of <i>how</i> the business makes money, your 2nd order rules you develop really do this, but from my experience, all such policies are subject to change and on a frequent basis until you find a set for the underlying driver.