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I really like Amazon's LPs, but I think they're often stretched to accommodate whatever opinion one has.

That's a misconception of what the LP are for though (in my opinion). They exist to provide a shared vocabulary that helps with meetings/interviews/reviews. "Deliver results/bias for action" are often at odds with "insist on the highest standards", same with "disagree and commit" and "ownership". The point is to get people to hash out the difference in opinions along 12 (the other 2 are atrocities) axis that give a direction to the discussion.

I've heard "I think this decision is not customer obsessed and we need to do better" in a lot of meetings. Make fun of the LPs all you want (I really get it), but they are definitely a net positive in the day-to-day.

I’m not making fun of them, I really like them. I also appreciate the shared vocabulary; in conversations with good actors they’re very beneficial.

However, I stand by my statement that they’re abused for propagating one’s own agenda.

Like you said there are adversarial LPs, and sometimes there is a clear winner but the opposing side can masquerade behind the opposing LP and make it seem like they’re in good faith.

They’re a net benefit for sure, but it really works best when you don’t have bad actors (I guess that’s probably true for all paradigms though).

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