The Entry Point

• When key knowledge lives in people’s heads, you introduce risk every time someone is unavailable or leaves.

• A clear entry point turns onboarding from a time sink into a repeatable, low-friction process.

• Written pathways make your organization more resilient, scalable, and less dependent on individual memory or goodwill.

What Is an Entry Point?

An entry point is the first thing someone new should read to understand what your team, tool, or project is about—and where to go next.

Think of it as the front door. If someone joins your team and you can’t give them one link that explains how things work and where to look, then you don’t have an entry point. You have a guessing game.

If that “link” is a conversation, or a mental checklist only long-timers know, then your entry point is undocumented—and your team is paying for it in lost time, repeated questions, and uneven access to knowledge.

The Path Should Be Clickable

From a good entry point, you should be able to reach everything you need to do your job. One starting link, then click by click, you navigate the system: tools, documents, responsibilities, contacts, calendars, training. Every part of the work environment should be discoverable from that single place—as if you’re following a marked trail.

Not everything will be instantly accessible. Some links might lead to pages you don’t yet have permission to view or tools that require training. That’s fine. What matters is that the structure is visible. If you know what exists and where it lives, you can plan your way in—even if a few doors are locked at first.

And no, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk to people. If you learn best by asking, ask. But a written path should exist too—for those who prefer to read, explore quietly, or work across time zones. Both routes should be available and respected.

Finally, if you’ve been around for a while and notice that the path is broken—a dead link, missing info, or unclear step—it’s your job to patch it. Update the doc. Add the missing piece. That’s how you keep the system healthy for the next person.

Why It Matters

One of the most neglected parts of any system—technical, organizational, or social—is the entry point: the place where a newcomer lands, trying to understand what to do, what’s already been done, and how to move forward. This is where momentum either builds or breaks.

Too often, there’s no written map. Just a patchwork of conversations and unspoken assumptions, available only if you happen to talk to the right person at the right time.

This isn’t just inefficient. It makes onboarding uneven and unnecessarily hard. Some people navigate ambiguity well. Others need more clarity and structure to get going. Without a visible path, the work becomes harder—not because the task itself is complex, but because the way in is hidden.

And the solution is usually simple: a short README, a diagram, a set of curated links. Instead, we bury it all in Slack, calendars, and scattered meeting notes.

Creating a clear entry point is a small act of foresight. It welcomes new people, cuts down repeated explanations, and helps the team move faster with less friction. We should do it more often.

Hold It! You Call This Page an Entry Point?

Well… Um… Yeah need to work on that. Meanwhile, here’s a list of links for ya..