Naming Software Teams

Team names are more than a label; they are a contract that tells the entire organization who owns what. When a name aligns tightly with a narrow mission, it blocks mission creep and lets most questions route to the right owners without a second guess. The article shows how a name like "Widget A" immediately signals responsibility, while vague names like "Platform Team" invite endless requests and confusion.

The piece walks through concrete failures of ambiguous or overly broad names, illustrating how they waste thousands of hours as engineers hunt for the right Slack channel or person to answer a query. By treating the team name as a router, leaders can cut down on hot-potatoing of issues and avoid costly conflicts between teams that think they own the same space. The author also points out that expanding a team's scope later is easier when you simply rename the team, rather than allowing the original name to drift and cause unintended scope expansion.

Finally, the article argues that naming decisions should be made early and deliberately, with brevity over cleverness. Good names are short, specific, and non-overlapping, allowing the org to scale without the overhead of constant re-clarification. This practical advice helps engineering managers set up efficient, scalable structures from day one.