Field Notes · 3 June 2026
Building an event taxonomy leadership will actually use
Naming events for engineers is not enough — the taxonomy must answer the questions the board keeps asking.
Analytics stacks accumulate events the way closets accumulate shirts. Someone needed a chart once; the event never left. An integrity review starts by listing what leadership asks every month, then mapping which events can honestly answer.
Prefer verbs with objects
button_clicked tells you almost nothing. trial_workspace_created and billing_plan_changed survive handovers. Properties should carry plan ID, account ID, and actor role — not free-text labels that drift.
Kill duplicates with ceremony
When two events claim the same meaning, pick one in a workshop with product and growth present. Archive the loser in writing. Silent deprecation is how double-counting returns after the next hire.
Tie stages to decisions
Activation is not a philosophical state. Define the first action that predicts paid conversion in your motion, then freeze it for a quarter unless pricing changes.
Our App Analytics Integrity Review produces that dictionary as a deliverable, not a slide flourish.