coordinating-cross-team-breakdown
This is the cross-team half of Bitwarden's Tech Breakdown Template. It covers Part 3 (the signoff table and cross-team checklist) and the completion-communication checklist that closes the breakdown. The engineering content of the breakdown — Parts 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 — lives in Skill(writing-tech-breakdowns); the canonical state machine (IN PLANNING → IN PROGRESS → PROPOSED → ACCEPTED → COMPLETE) is documented there. This skill is what runs when the breakdown reaches PROPOSED and what runs again when implementation lands and the breakdown is ready to move to COMPLETE.
When the canonical template is needed, fetch page 2920349776 via get_confluence_page.
Identifying Affected Teams
The signoff table is only as useful as the team list that feeds it. Two sources, in order:
1. The Initiative, via the funnel
If the breakdown sits under a BW Initiative, run Skill(navigating-the-initiative-funnel) to pull:
- The initiative's affected-teams list — the shepherd has typically identified this during Scoping & Commitment.
- Sibling teams' epics under the same initiative — these become rows in the signoff table, and each links to the sibling team's own breakdown in the "Associated Other Team Breakdown" column.
- The shepherd themselves — they hold the cross-team coordination context this skill is built around. Loop them in early, especially if a signoff is going to be contentious.
The funnel-first approach is the default when an initiative exists. It produces a signoff list that reflects the same affected-teams picture the shepherd is reporting to leadership. Drift between the two is itself a signal worth surfacing.