Principles¶

Principles are not slogans.

They are decision lenses—the rules you apply when the answer is not obvious, when speed conflicts with quality, when short-term pressure meets long-term sustainability.

Most teams have values written somewhere. Very few teams can tell you, in concrete terms, what those values mean when you're deciding whether to ship a risky change on Friday, whether to skip a code review because you're behind, or whether to deliver bad news to a stakeholder who doesn't want to hear it.

This section is about turning values into behaviors. It is about clarity over control, consistency over heroics, and people-first without being soft.

What this section covers¶

These principles guide how engineering leaders at all levels make decisions and create environments where teams can do their best work:

Principle	Core idea	Deep-dive
Psychological Safety First	Learning and speed require candor without fear. People must be able to say "I don't know," surface risks, and fail without being punished.	Core Principles
Clarity Before Speed	Ambiguity creates rework. Clarity enables autonomy. Every document, every meeting, every decision starts with context and a clear ask.	Core Principles
Ownership with Guardrails	Autonomy sustains pace. Guardrails protect users. Teams own outcomes end-to-end, within well-defined boundaries.	Core Principles
Small, Steady, Shipped	Flow beats bursts. Small batches, frequent deploys, reversible decisions. No heroics required.	Core Principles
Reliability Is Product	Trust is part of the product. Unreliable systems burn roadmap and goodwill faster than any feature can restore them.	Core Principles
Transparent Decisions	Context scales; memory fades. Decisions are written, owned, and reviewed.	Decision Making
Default Async, Meet for Conflict/Creativity	Remote works when writing works. Synchronous time is for alignment and exploration, not status.	Core Principles
Inclusion Is a Leadership Skill	Diverse teams outperform when included. Inclusion is not a checkbox—it's facilitation, visibility, and structural fairness.	Core Principles

How to use these principles¶

These principles are designed to be operational. That means:

They should show up in your ADRs, in your planning sessions, in your one-on-ones, in how you run incidents. They should inform what you measure, what you celebrate, and what you flag as a problem.

Each principle has a corresponding set of observable behaviors—things you can see, measure, and coach. If a principle doesn't change what you do on a Tuesday afternoon, it's not operational. It's a poster.

Suggested practices¶

Principles Kickoff (quarterly, 60 minutes per team): Choose 2–3 principles to emphasize for the quarter. Define 2 observable behaviors for each. Set a review date.
Principle-to-Decision Tagging (ongoing): Every ADR includes a "Principle upheld" line. This forces explicit trade-offs and prevents principle drift.
Retro Hook (weekly): Pick one principle and ask: "Where did we uphold it this week? Where did we violate it? What will we try next?"
Design Forum Gate: Proposals must include context, alternatives, rollback plan, and a clear ask. No slide decks without written pre-reads.

What good looks like¶

Signal	What you observe
Principles are cited in decisions	ADRs reference specific principles; trade-offs are explicit
Fewer "what are we building?" conversations	Clarity is established before work starts
Incidents are calm, documented, and blameless	Psychological safety is real, not theater
PRs are small and frequent	Flow beats heroics
On-call is humane and well-supported	Reliability is built in, not bolted on
Meetings have pre-reads and decisions recorded	Async-first is actually practiced
Speaking time is distributed; credit is public	Inclusion is operational

What usually goes wrong¶

Anti-pattern	What it looks like	Mitigation
Sloganization	Principles on slides, ignored in practice	Tie every ADR and retro action to a principle
Hero culture	Firefighters celebrated; steady delivery invisible	Celebrate consistency and small wins publicly
Metric weaponization	DORA used to rank individuals	Never individual targets; team trends only
Async sludge	Walls of text with no clear ask	Enforce Bottom Line & Ask structure
Safety theater	"Blameless" in name, punitive in practice	Leaders model vulnerability; focus on systems
Hidden decisions	Slack threads replace ADRs	Require decision capture within 24 hours

Core Principles — The eight principles in detail, with behaviors and examples.
Decision Making & ADRs — How to make and document decisions that stick.
Vision & Strategy — Translating direction into bets and portfolio management.
Ethics & Responsibility — Doing the right thing when no one is watching.