diff --git a/doc/source/contributor/goals.rst b/doc/source/contributor/goals.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..56f7dfd67
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/contributor/goals.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+..
+      Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+      not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
+      a copy of the License at
+
+          http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+      Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+      distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
+      WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
+      License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
+      under the License.
+
+=====
+Goals
+=====
+
+Like many OpenStack projects, placement uses blueprints and specifications to
+plan and design upcoming work. Sometimes, however, certain types of work fit
+more in the category of wishlist, or when-we-get-around-to-it. These types of
+work are often not driven by user or operator feature requests, but are instead
+related to architectural, maintenance, and technical debt management goals that
+will make the lives of contributors to the project easier over time. In those
+cases a specification is too formal and detailed but it is still worthwhile to
+remember the idea and put it somewhere. That's what this document is for: a
+place to find and put goals for placement that are related to making
+contribution more pleasant and keep the project and product healthy, yet are
+too general to be considered feature requests.
+
+This document can also operate as one of several sources of guidance on how not
+to stray too far from the long term vision of placement.
+
+Don't Global Config
+-------------------
+
+Placement uses `oslo.config`_ to manage configuration. From nova, it inherits
+using a global ``CONF`` as the way to interact with the configuration options.
+This isn't necessary. If changed, it would make tests less likely to leak
+configuration settings amongst themselves and will also ease use of the
+``PlacementFixture`` by other projects which wish to use placement in their
+functional tests. Once we fix this we should ensure that we avoid regressing to
+using global configuration.
+
+
+.. _oslo.config: https://docs.openstack.org/oslo.config
diff --git a/doc/source/contributor/index.rst b/doc/source/contributor/index.rst
index e6234fd20..0979291db 100644
--- a/doc/source/contributor/index.rst
+++ b/doc/source/contributor/index.rst
@@ -28,7 +28,8 @@ better scheduling of various entities in the cloud.
 
 The document serves to explain the architecture of the system and to provide
 some guidance on how to maintain and extend the code. For more detail on why
-the system was created and how it does its job see :doc:`/index`.
+the system was created and how it does its job see :doc:`/index`. For some
+insight into the longer term goals of the system see :doc:`goals`.
 
 Big Picture
 ===========
diff --git a/doc/source/index.rst b/doc/source/index.rst
index fca42c575..1bb924a41 100644
--- a/doc/source/index.rst
+++ b/doc/source/index.rst
@@ -247,6 +247,7 @@ This history of placement microversions may be found in
    configuration/index
    contributor/index
    contributor/api-ref-guideline
+   contributor/goals
    contributor/quick-dev
    install/controller-install-obs
    install/controller-install-rdo