# Foundation

Source: https://segern.com/practice/the-foundation

Understand the promise before committing the effort.

The foundation makes the work clear enough to begin and honest enough to revise. It should establish the problem, the person affected, the intended outcome, and the constraints that give the decision its shape.

Our Foundation One-Pager brings those elements together. It describes the job to be done, the audience and context, and how the experience should feel. It names success, non-goals, risks, and one accountable steward. Evidence and unresolved assumptions sit beside the recommendation rather than being buried in a supporting document.

A steward is the person responsible for keeping the purpose and decisions coherent. They do not have to perform every task, but they do have to know who can decide, how progress will be judged, and when a change requires another conversation.

For a product, the one-pager might define the first complete journey we need to test. In Continuity, it might define a decision about positioning, scope, or investment, with viable alternatives and the evidence needed to choose between them. Both need a finish line. Neither needs a larger document than the decision can justify.