Vision Statements
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Vision Statements are simple statements of your needs and wants. They’re a powerful tool for any business, especially during periods of transformation. Here’s an example:
I want to be the go-to sourdough bread caterer in East London. When people think of high quality sourdough bread, they think of us.
I want to earn at least £15,000 per month catering sourdough bread at high-profile events.
I want to tell whether a new job is worth it in as little resource (time, cost, and effort) as possible.
I want to minimise the time I interface with day-to-day operations.
I want to pay and be paid efficiently.
Consider how the last statement is worded. Notice how it is not: ‘To hire an assistant to do invoicing.’ Even though it’s a logical and immediate solution, it stops us from thinking of better solutions. For example, we could automate invoicing and follow-ups. Perhaps in line with other goals, we build a website checkout, and so don’t need to send invoices at all!
In the world of Agile development, our Vision Statements are referred to as User Stories. It’s best that they are implementation-free, that is, not reference any possible or existing implementation, or solution (way of doing things). This way, we can always imagine and adjust our solutions to meet our real wants. Hopefully, we improve our implementation to align best with our wants over time.
Take the example of the ‘Save’ button. When I built my first app, I wrote: ‘I want to be able to hit ‘Save’ on my work.’ Consider instead: ‘I want to easily access my documents.’ These days, many programs will auto-save, or immediately bring up what you were working on last, as if saving shouldn’t even be a thing.
Last, strive to avoid overlap in your statements. Each should stand on its own and have nothing to do with any other as much as possible. We’ll call this behaviour ‘independence’.
Guide To
Take a nice morning out in the park, or clean up your office and settle with a nice cup of tea. This exercise is important — a chance to reflect on what you’d like, what’s important; a helpful compass.
Close your eyes and think… in an ideal world…
Come up with your list freely, and write what matters to you. Statements may lie in any field, such as brand, product, revenue, marketing, operations, community.
Endeavour to write implementation-free statements.
Endeavour to write independent statements.