How to Choose This Week’s Landing

Use this when the team asks: what should we try to Land this week?

This is a weekly steering aid for Set Course. It is not a replacement for Route Planning or general backlog prioritisation.

A Landing is a meaningful outcome: something reached a real beneficiary, or new evidence changed what happens next.

The rule is simple:

Choose the highest-value Landing you can credibly get to a real beneficiary this week, after making urgent Run explicit.

That means:

value comes before ease
realism matters, but it is a constraint, not the main selector
urgent Run is handled openly, not hidden
if the highest-value option is too big, slice it into a smaller Landing that still matters

Weekly order of priority

Use this order during Set Course.

1. Name urgent Run first

Ask:

Is there an incident, escalation, or blocker that cannot wait?
If yes, what planned work does it displace?

Urgent Run should not be hidden. Name it and name the trade-off.

2. Prefer the strongest credible Customer Landing

Ask:

What outcome would create the most customer value this week?
Can it genuinely reach a user or customer this week?

If yes, this should usually win.

3. If no Customer Landing is credible, choose the strongest Business or Decision Landing

Ask:

What would create the most useful movement this week?
What would unlock a sale, a stakeholder decision, or a meaningful learning step?

This stops the team pretending every week must end in customer-visible shipping.

4. Choose a Platform Landing when risk or capability is the real constraint

Ask:

What reliability, resilience, or enablement outcome matters most now?
What would reduce risk or unblock future delivery in a meaningful way?

Platform work should not win by habit. It should win when it is the most important honest next step.

5. Let non-urgent Run compete honestly

Ask:

What proactive Run actually matters this week?
Is it more valuable than the Landing alternatives, or just more familiar?

Do not default to maintenance because it feels easy to finish.

The weekly checklist

When choosing this week’s intended Landing, ask these questions in order:

What urgent Run must be handled no matter what?
Of the remaining options, which outcome creates the most value this week?
Can we credibly get that outcome to a real beneficiary this week?
If not, can we slice it into a smaller Landing that still matters?
Are we choosing this because it is valuable, or because it is easy?

If the answer to question 5 is “because it is easy”, choose again.

Tie-breaker questions

If two options look close, ask:

Which option reaches a real beneficiary this week?
Which option reduces the biggest immediate risk?
Which option unlocks more future Landings?
Which option would we be embarrassed not to have named on Friday?
Which option are we choosing only because it is small, familiar, or convenient?

What good looks like

One or two intended Landings, not a long wish list
The chosen Landing has a named beneficiary and clear outcome
The team can explain why this won over the next best alternative
Urgent Run is visible and any displaced work is named
The chosen Landing is ambitious enough to matter and small enough to be credible this week

Anti-patterns

Don’t choose the easiest thing just to say something landed. Do choose the highest-value outcome that is still credible this week.
Don’t choose a huge important thing that cannot plausibly Land this week. Do slice it into a smaller Landing that still matters.
Don’t force a Customer Landing when the real need is Business, Platform, or Decision. Do choose the most honest valuable next step.
Don’t let urgent Run erase the week’s priorities without saying so. Do name the Run work and the trade-off it creates.
Don’t treat Monday as generic backlog sorting. Do use it to steer the week toward a specific intended outcome.

Simple examples

Incident week

An outage hits on Monday morning.

Urgent Run is named first.
The team pauses one planned Build item.
The intended Landing becomes a Platform Landing: service stability restored and monitoring improved.

Normal product week

There is a credible customer-facing change that can reach beta this week.

No urgent Run displaces it.
The intended Landing is a Customer Landing.
Smaller internal work waits.

Sales-driven week

No customer ship is realistic, but a live demo is needed for a strategic account.

The intended Landing is a Business Landing.
The team is explicit that this wins because it creates immediate commercial movement.

Platform-heavy week

Customer work is possible, but a reliability issue is putting future delivery at risk.

The intended Landing is a Platform Landing.
The team names why risk reduction is the most valuable honest outcome this week.