Tenets

Tenets are a small set of written principles that state how a team will make trade-offs. At Amazon, tenets accompany a PR/FAQ to make a team's priorities explicit - for example, 'we favor selection over speed' - so that day-to-day decisions stay consistent without endless debate.

Good tenets are opinionated and reveal a real trade-off; a 'tenet' that no one would disagree with isn't doing any work.

They make disagreement productive: when two people clash on a decision, they can check which tenet applies instead of arguing from scratch.

Write the press release before you write the code

Turn your idea into an Amazon-style PR/FAQ, a scored verdict, and a PRD - free to start.

Start your PR/FAQ

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Working Backwards is an independent tool from The Resonance. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon.com, Inc., Working Backwards LLC, or the authors or publisher of Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon. Amazon, Kindle, Prime, Alexa, and AWS are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, referenced only to describe the methodology’s origin. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.