Ownership

Ownership is the relationship that assigns responsibility for a landmark to a team or person. It answers the question: “Who is responsible for this?”

What Is Ownership?

Ownership is a directional relationship between a landmark and its owner (a team or person). When a landmark has an owner, it means:

The owner is responsible for maintaining, updating, and answering questions about the landmark
The owner is the first point of contact for issues, changes, or inquiries
The owner has accountability for the landmark’s health and accuracy

Every landmark can have at most one owner. The owner can be either a team or a person, but not both. If a team owns a landmark, the team as a whole is responsible. If a person owns a landmark, that individual is responsible.

Why Ownership Matters

Ownership provides critical context for collaboration and accountability:

Clear responsibility: When someone has a question about a service, project, or resource, ownership tells them who to contact. Instead of asking around or guessing, they can look at the landmark and see the owner immediately.

Accountability: Ownership establishes who is responsible for keeping the landmark up to date. When documentation is outdated, links are broken, or information is missing, the owner knows they need to fix it.

Incident response: When something goes wrong, ownership helps you quickly identify who should be involved in the response. The owner is the first person to notify, even if they delegate the actual work.

Onboarding: New team members can quickly understand who owns what by exploring ownership relationships. This reduces the time needed to learn the organizational structure.

Decision making: When changes are proposed, ownership clarifies who has the authority to approve or reject them. The owner is the decision maker for their landmark.

How to Assign Ownership

Ownership is assigned during entity creation or editing. In the entity wizard, Step 1 (Details) includes an Owner field.

To assign ownership:

Open the landmark you want to assign an owner for
Click Edit to open the editing wizard
In Step 1 (Details), find the Owner field
Search for and select the team or person who should own this landmark
Click Next through the remaining steps
Click Save to apply the changes

To change ownership:

Open the landmark’s detail drawer
Click Edit
In Step 1, change the Owner field to a different team or person
Complete the wizard and save

To remove ownership:

Open the landmark’s detail drawer
Click Edit
In Step 1, clear the Owner field (leave it empty)
Complete the wizard and save

Team Ownership vs Person Ownership

You can assign ownership to either a team or a person. Each approach has advantages:

Team ownership:

Responsibility is shared across the team
If a team member leaves, the ownership remains with the team
The team can delegate work internally
Best for services, projects, and resources that require ongoing maintenance
Example: “Platform Engineering owns the Auth Service”

Person ownership:

Responsibility is assigned to a specific individual
Clear accountability for a single person
If the person leaves, ownership needs to be transferred
Best for specialized knowledge, temporary projects, or individual contributions
Example: “Alex Johnson owns the Q4 Migration Project”

Best practice: Prefer team ownership for long-lived landmarks like services and infrastructure. Use person ownership for temporary projects, specialized documentation, or when a specific individual is the subject matter expert.

Viewing Ownership

Ownership is visible in multiple places throughout Legend:

Entity card: The entity card displays the owner in the subtitle. For example, “Owner: Platform Engineering” or “Owner: Alex Johnson”. This makes ownership immediately visible when browsing the dashboard.

Detail drawer: The detail drawer shows the owner prominently. Click the owner name to navigate to the team or person entity.

Topology explorer: The topology graph visualizes ownership as edges between landmarks and their owners. This helps you understand the organizational structure and who is responsible for what.

Search results: When you search for a landmark, the search results include the owner information. You can also search for a team or person to see all landmarks they own.

Ownership in the Topology Explorer

The topology explorer provides a visual representation of ownership relationships. When you explore a landmark, the graph shows:

The landmark at the center
The owner (team or person) connected by an ownership edge
Other relationships (dependencies, associations, memberships)

Ownership edges are displayed differently from other relationship types, making it easy to distinguish responsibility from dependencies or associations.

Navigating ownership in topology:

Click the owner node to navigate to the team or person entity
From a team entity, you can see all landmarks the team owns
From a person entity, you can see all landmarks the person owns
Use breadcrumbs to trace your exploration path

Managing Ownership

Transferring ownership: When responsibility changes (team reorganization, person leaves, project handoff), transfer ownership to the new responsible party. This ensures the landmark always has a current owner.

Multiple landmarks, one owner: A team or person can own multiple landmarks. This is common for teams that manage several services or individuals who are subject matter experts in multiple areas.

Unowned landmarks: Landmarks without owners are not problematic, but they lack clear accountability. If you notice many unowned landmarks, consider working with your team to assign ownership.

Ownership disputes: If two teams or people both claim ownership of a landmark, discuss and clarify responsibility. The owner should be the party who is actually responsible for maintaining and answering questions about the landmark.

Best Practices for Ownership

Assign ownership early: When creating a new landmark, assign ownership at the same time. This prevents landmarks from becoming orphaned or having unclear responsibility.

Review ownership periodically: As teams reorganize and people change roles, ownership can become outdated. Periodically review ownership to ensure it reflects current responsibility.

Use team ownership for shared responsibility: If multiple people are responsible for a landmark, assign ownership to the team rather than an individual. This provides continuity when team members change.

Document the owner’s role: If the ownership relationship is not obvious, add a note in the documentation explaining why this team or person is the owner. This helps future maintainers understand the responsibility structure.

Communicate ownership changes: When ownership changes, notify relevant stakeholders. This ensures people know who to contact for questions or issues going forward.

Ownership vs Other Relationships

Ownership is distinct from other relationship types:

Ownership vs Dependencies:

Ownership assigns responsibility (who is accountable)
Dependencies assign requirements (what is needed to function)
A landmark can have an owner and dependencies simultaneously
Example: “Platform Engineering owns the Auth Service, and the Auth Service depends on PostgreSQL”

Ownership vs Associations:

Ownership is a strong, accountability relationship
Associations are loose, contextual connections
Ownership implies responsibility; associations imply relatedness
Example: “Alex Johnson owns the Q4 Migration Project, and the Q4 Migration Project is associated with the Billing API”

Ownership vs Team Membership:

Ownership connects a landmark to its responsible party
Team membership connects a person to their teams
These are separate concepts that work together
Example: “Alex Johnson is a member of Platform Engineering, and Platform Engineering owns the Auth Service”

Dependencies

Associations

Topology Explorer