Vision, Mission, Strategy, Values — fitting pieces together for Success
“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” — Steve Jobs
Creating a simple and concise vision and mission statement for a department or project or company is essential to articulate its purpose and direction. It might be something that takes time and effort, and requires rounds of reviews but keep it simple is important so people who will execute can easily understand and remember. Here’s an example of how you can take steps and come up with a clear and straightforward vision and mission.
Step #1 — answer questions and define below for the department or project or company:
In the context of software delivery,
Vision is a clear, high-level, and inspirational description of what the software product or project aims to achieve.
Mission is a statement that defines the purpose and scope of a specific project or software development effort.
Strategy is a comprehensive plan or approach that outlines how a software project or initiative will be executed to achieve its goals and objectives effectively.
Values refer to the core principles and beliefs that guide the behavior, decisions.
Success in software delivery is a multidimensional concept that encompasses technical, business, and user-related aspects.
Step #2 — specify which pillars will constitute the core of the department or project or company.
Three essential pillars needs to be taken into account to envision big picture — People. Product. Process.
Establishing a clear vision, mission, strategy, values, and success criteria for each of the three pillars creates a straightforward roadmap for how our project or organization can achieve a significant and meaningful impact.
Here is one of the example how all pieces are fitting together:
Now let’s look at each core is more details.
People
People play a critical role in the software delivery process, and their skills, collaboration, and contributions are essential to the success of the project. Answering how vision, mission will look like, what steps to take to achieve it and and the criteria for success will contribute to fostering a conducive work environment and a collaborative team mindset:
Product
Product represents end result of the collective efforts of development teams, stakeholders, and other contributors. You can also say it’s the culmination of the software development process. There are many way to measure success but key is to meet user needs, deliver value, and achieve the business goals. Organizing software delivery lifecycle in such a way that product meets quality standards, is user-friendly, and aligns with both technical and business requirements:
Process
Process refers to the set of organized and structured activities, tasks, and steps that teams follow to design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain software products or solutions.
Each project or company will establish its own set of pillars, including vision, mission, strategy for achievement, and values to uphold. However, the ultimate goal is to keep these cores simple and easily comprehensible for all stakeholders involved. By doing so, we ensure that execution becomes feasible and paves the way for successful outcomes.
