There are lots of different approaches to creating customer journey maps. At Hard Yards, we tend to see journey maps in one of two ways. They can either be used as a discovery tool or a planning tool. In discovery mode, we use journey maps to describe the current state of a given journey in order to empathize with the user, identify pain points, and expose potential solution ideas or areas for further research and testing. In the planning mode, journey maps can be used to map out a new experience from the ground up. This is often useful when launching a new product or service.