John Cutler · 3 min read · Product Teams
TBM 404: Should Teams Use the Same Tracker?
Read the original on cutlefish.substack.com →
Leadership should understand each team's purpose and pipelines without forcing a single tracking system. The article advocates lightweight governance—shared release calendars, accessible context, and goals-based roadmaps—so teams can use their own tools while still coordinating across boundaries. When work spans multiple teams, a common language and interfaces help, but trust and psychological safety are essential to avoid over-scrutiny.
Key Takeaways
- Do not enforce a single tracker; allow teams to use their preferred tools if governance and context are preserved.
- Share near-term release calendars and provide a common interface for cross-team coordination.
- Use goals, value models, charters, and problem-based roadmaps as the primary means of alignment.
- Provide visibility into deployments and actual usage, translated for non-technical audiences.
- Foster psychological safety and trust to prevent governance creep and over-scrutiny.
Excerpt
Do you think it is a reasonable expectation to know what every team in the company is working on, and to ask them to use the same system for tracking work? Good question. I’ll give you my perspective, and I’m curious to hear how others see it. I think it is perfectly reasonable to know why each team exists, how they fit into the value chain, the customers they serve, the systems they own, what they have released recently, the metrics they hope to move and how those metrics connect to what matters, and a high-level sense of their current…