Recently, I wrote about how one of the most common phrases I use when working with clients is some variant if “if we could only choose one”. Now, I want to dive into the other thing I find myself saying the most: “single source of truth”.
I’m a strong believer that the best advice is obvious. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy advice to follow. In this case, the majority of product teams and companies I work with don’t have a true “single source of truth”, or a place policies, decisions, strategy, research, etc. are documented. This doesn’t necessarily have to all sit in one tool, but related content should all live together - ie company-wide content should probably all be in one place, as should product team content.
Many of the teams I work with, both in person and remote, have serious challenges managing the knowledge in an organisation. When knowledge isn’t well-managed and centrally available, it inevitably leads to confusion and misalignment.
In some cases, the most useful source of knowledge (ie source of truth) is in a single person’s head, meaning that the dissemination of knowledge only happens as fast as that person can answer questions, and only as far as the people who ask the questions. In this situation, this person who holds the knowledge becomes overwhelmed with requests, and while they know they should document their knowledge, they have trouble finding the time. As a result, many people, especially new joiners, spend a long time searching for answers to questions that block their work, or create conflicts because they misunderstand the decisions being made or historical context.
In other cases, teams have process, research, data, todos, etc. documented in various areas, but there is some overlap. Some projects are managed in spreadsheets, others in a PM tool, and others in people’s heads. This means that stakeholders have trouble understanding status of work at a glance, leading to lots of unnecessary outreach, clarification, and status update meetings. When these different knowledge bases have conflicting information, it can be hard to figure out which is correct or has priority (and that fact is likely in someone’s head).
In the worst cases of knowledge management challenges, strategy, process, plans, etc. are simply not defined. The knowledge/data doesn’t exist. We don’t have a strategy, we haven’t done user interviews, etc. If we don’t have a single source of truth where we would document this, it’s easier to overlook these things. In this scenario, many teams, especially remote teams, work quality degrades, development goes in a vague direction towards nowhere, and the business is setting itself up to fail.
Think about the most knowledgable person you work with. Maybe they’ve been at your organisation for 20 years, and they know everything there is to know about the history of the company, decisions made, successes and failures, the strategy, processes, etc. They can answer almost any question you can think to ask about the company.
Now imagine that person was a database - that’s your single source of truth.
In concrete terms, a single source of truth serves as the digital repository for a team’s or company’s knowledge. Any person should be able to visit this digital home without any prior knowledge and be able to understand what the organisation/team’s strategy is, its priorities, its processes, and the evidence/reasoning behind why this group of people is doing what they’re doing, how they’re doing it.
A good single source of truth is a place a new team member can go to significantly speed up their onboarding time, or where another team’s product manager can quickly understand how their work aligns with this team.
A few pieces of information that I find important to include when helping teams build or maintain a single source of truth:
If I’ve missed some key things, let me know!
As I’ve written about, I don’t think tools matter as much as most people think, so use whatever you want. I’ve seen it work in Notion, Google Docs, Confluence/Jira, Basecamp, Clickup, and others.
Without a strong single source of truth, you’re risking misalignment, conflict, reduced velocity, and confusion. With a strong single source of truth, teams move faster, onboard new team members more effectively and quickly, work more in sync with the company strategy, and free up the most knowledgeable team members to do their best work. The advice may be obvious, but ignore creating a strong single source of truth at your own peril.