Explorers leave trails. Teams gather around campfires. Organisations navigate using landmarks.
A landmark is a trusted reference point that helps people orient themselves during a quest. It represents the organisation's current understanding of something important.
Trails help us learn. Landmarks help us align.
Trails are the evidence left behind during exploration. Landmarks are the trusted reference points that emerge from that exploration. Customer interviews are trails. The resulting product strategy may become a landmark.
Landmarks are not permanent
A landmark is not an immutable truth. It is the best current representation of understanding. As new trails emerge and new campfires occur, landmarks may change. What matters is clarity: at any given moment, people should know this is our current reference point.
Examples
- Product strategy
- Product roadmap
- Architecture overview
- Operating model
- Current assessment or maturity baseline
The Beach principle
Leave rich trails. Maintain clear landmarks. Explorers should be free to discover new paths, but nobody should be uncertain about where they stand.
In Gleo, this maps to Landmark.