The present study aims to deepen the knowledge about how teachers’ work with individual development plans (IDPs) is shaped at the intersection of national and local governance on the one hand and teachers’ professional autonomy on the other. The conceptual points of departure are mainly taken from Wartofsky’s distinction between primary, secondary and tertiary artifacts, Latour’s conceptual pair inscription - translation, and the activity theoretical understanding of contradictions and dilemmas. Methodologically, the study is based on qualitative content analysis of material based interviews with five teachers from each of the three school stages: primary, intermediate, and secondary stage (in total 15 teachers). Through the analysis of how IDPs are understood and used by teachers, a picture emerges of the complexity that is involved when a school reform takes shape in different local contexts. The results show that IDP work on the one hand is shaped by the aims that teachers perceive that they need to achieve by using the IDP tool, on the other hand by the contextual conditions framing their work, particularly in terms of external control vs. autonomy. Further in-depth analysis also indicates that teachers’ work with IDPs takes shape in relation to various dilemma management strategies related to time/workload, scope/complexity of document content, and the fact that IDPs are to fulfil summative as well as formative assessment purposes. Teachers’ emerging IDP work is discussed in the light of international studies that in similar ways point to the contextual/organizational conditions as contributing to creating concrete assessment and instructional practices.