Trash Can Tracking

Key takeaways

• Trash can tracking means placing trash can symbols along your discovery and delivery boards so that discarded work is tracked as deliberately as delivered work.
• It helps answer two questions leaders and teams ask often: "Are we innovating enough?" and "Is our discovery actually working?"
• The "golden trash can" is what happens when a shipped feature flops and the team removes the code — - Petra and Teresa debate whether that belongs on the delivery board (as wasted effort to avoid) or the discovery board (as learning to celebrate).
• An empty solution-discovery trash can is a clear red flag: it means the team isn't comparing and contrasting multiple options.
• An empty problem-space trash can is more nuanced — it could signal an innovation gap, a command-and-control culture, or, if your strategy and vision are strong, a perfectly healthy filter working as intended.
• Whether customer problems even reach the board depends on psychological safety — can support agents, salespeople, engineers, and customers all bubble problems up to be assessed?
• The trash can also becomes a ritual for retiring "zombie opportunities" — decisions a team made to walk away from a problem that the rest of the org keeps resurfacing.

Also discussed

• Why saying no to certain customer problems is a sign your strategy is actually working.
• A brief detour into German recycling supremacy.
• A teased future episode: "Unpacking Innovation."

Resources & Links:

• Follow Teresa Torres: https://ProductTalk.org
• Follow Petra Wille: https://Petra-Wille.com

Mentioned in this episode:

• Illustrations of the discovery and delivery task boards
• Petra’s blog post explaining the idea assessment: Opportunity Assessment: Do We Want to Invest in Discovering This Idea?
• Opportunity Solution Trees (OSTs) — Teresa's continuous discovery framework
• How Compare and Contrast Decisions Lead to Better Product Outcomes