add core tenets documents

CODEOWNERS

@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-# Agora Council,              Barry O'Neill, Brian Miller, Colin Flanagan, Csongor Patka, Liana Soghomonyan,      Noah Schechter, Thiago Vinhas, Sanchita Majumdar
-* @ModaOperandi/agora-council @barryoneill   @bjmiller     @upperbounds    @ppatt         @liana-soghomonyan-moda @noahschechter  @tvinhas       @sancheetah
+# Agora Council,              Barry O'Neill, Colin Flanagan, Csongor Patka, Liana Soghomonyan,      Noah Schechter, Sanchita Majumdar
+* @ModaOperandi/agora-council @barryoneill   @upperbounds    @ppatt         @liana-soghomonyan-moda @noahschechter  @sancheetah

core-tenets/collaboration.md

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+# Core Tenets: Collaboration
+
+## Lead with Partnership
+
+Our role isn't just to build what's requested, but to proactively engage with stakeholders as strategic partners. By understanding their goals and challenges deeply, we can co-create the best solutions.
+
+
+## Decide with Data
+
+Our planning and decisions should be guided by data and evidence, not just intuition. Whether it's analyzing user behavior to justify customization, calculating the cost of software development, or measuring the impact of our work, data is our common language. This approach makes our choices objective and focuses our efforts on what delivers the most value.
+
+
+## Build in the Open
+
+We should operate with full transparency to our business partners. This means clearly communicating the 'why' behind our decisions, the trade-offs we're making (e.g., speed vs. cost), and the progress of our work. When we explain ‘why’, we build trust and ensure everyone understands the long-term vision we're working toward together.
+
+
+## Trust but Verify
+
+There will be times when ownership of a process falls outside of the responsibility of Tech. We should trust the partner to follow agreed-upon (and, ideally, documented) workflows and responsibilities - but also should put in place the proper guardrails and checks to ensure that, if a process is broken or not being followed, we are aware of it.

core-tenets/replatform.md

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+# Core Tenets: Replatform
+
+## No Undifferentiated Heavy Lifting
+
+This is the core tenet from AWS; AWS does the undifferentiated heavy lifting (i.e. running data centers, administering databases, etc) so other companies can focus on the things that are meaningful to their particular business. We should invest primarily in the features and core competencies that are differentiators for Moda. Example: don’t run a fully custom e-commerce platform because e-commerce is a “solved problem” and being “good at e-commerce” is not going to make Moda rise above competitors. If we are distracted by implementing and maintaining features that come “out of the box” from commodity software, that reduces our ability to build the things that make Moda “Moda”.
+
+
+## Choose enterprise software
+
+Enterprise software allows Moda to take advantage of expertise and product features built by a company whose entire business is to make that software great. Benefits include:
+* The feature suite will almost always be more fully baked and thought out than something we build internally.
+* We can choose the right tool for the job.
+* The third-party is responsible for platform-level uptime and incident resolution.
+* When factoring in long term maintenance and personnel salary, cost may actually be lower.
+
+
+## Avoid tight coupling
+
+In a system with a number of enterprise tools, it can be easy to tightly couple those systems by integrating one directly into another. Following such an approach makes it more difficult to replace any of those tightly coupled tools - and leads to higher vendor lock-in and long term tool and cost commitments. If we instead invest in moving data between systems (using Workato or a similar approach), that reduces (or eliminates) the coupling of two systems and they can run independently of each other. Furthermore, you are establishing the core data models that matter for each system - which then flips a tool change from a direct integration to a much simpler data transformation task. Tight coupling can be acceptable for strong, existing, direct integrations between platforms, assuming they also minimize customization, cost, and maintenance. Note that this approach requires a clear definition of which tools are the ‘system of record’ for each type of data.
+
+
+## Minimize Customization
+
+The more we choose standard features, the less we need to invest in maintaining and documenting customizations in the long term. Each customization is something that Moda Tech will then need to own (and maintain and debug and monitor; related: even [Shopify themes require patching](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/themes/managing-themes/updating-themes), which have to be easier to roll out with fewer customizations) in perpetuity. Furthermore, choosing standard features allows us to follow best practices established by the platform. Lastly, customization requires institutional knowledge over those customizations, which over time can become concentrated in a small number of individuals who then become single points of failure; standard features allow people to move around more easily, new people to join the organization more easily, contractors to be able to contribute more easily.
+
+
+## But customize for differentiators
+
+Yes, there will be times when we need to customize - and even build entire features fully customized; an example might be Stylist Suite because stylists drive 50% of the business and are one of the things our clients love about us (check out defined levels in column F [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MGM_wTh1q8yZHs-SvpPptuEX_nLEF41cTUpvCwIYiaE/edit?gid=9527547#gid=9527547)). But we should be deliberate when making such a choice and only make it when absolutely necessary. When being asked to customize something, our first question should always be “but do we really need to customize?”