Learning Goals

• Explain why vision documents are important
• Identify the 11 elements of a vision document

Summary of the Chapter

There are various templates for developing a vision document, depending on the scale of the project, approach, and organization.

A vision document can also describe the broad scope and goal of a program, product, or initiative. A clear definition of a problem, proposed solution, and high-level features of a product serves to set expectations and reduce risks. The more complex and involved a project, the more important a short document becomes. Complex projects have higher chances of miscommunication and often costly mistakes.

It is also essential to adopt a vision document to guide the project planning and strategy for its long-term success. A vision document contains eleven elements, including an introduction, positioning, description of stakeholders and users, product features, overview and restrictions, a how-to guide, and other elements. All eleven of these elements are explained in this chapter. 

Considerations for Lesson Planning

Actually creating a vision document is one of the more straight-forward ways to engage students in the topic of vision documents. Commonly employed for Unified Modeling Language (UML) projects, vision documents track team progress, project development, and research so that decision-makers, team members, and supervisors are consistently updated on projects.

One way to use the vision document is to give learners a template that provides an example of how to prepare each section, then they would be required to maintain and complete the vision document over several weeks as they complete their projects. Incorporating stakeholder interviews — or interviewing practitioners who customarily produce vision documents — can also be effective strategies to support learners’ progress through developing their own vision document.

In any given section of the document, additional work is required. For example, in the stakeholder and market demographic sections, students are required to conduct research, develop actor maps, complete empathy mapping exercises, and articulate their stakeholders’ needs. In effect, the vision document serves as a guide for learners to move through the research process in a methodical way. Of course, a template may not be effective for all learners, so it is important to adapt to the needs of the group.

Assessment Strategies

The vision document assignment can be part of a larger portfolio that requires students to prepare a full business case. As a stand-alone document, team progress can be assessed and formative feedback can be provided at the mid-point in the semester to help guide their work. By the end of the semester, through the portfolio, the vision document can become a full depiction of the work the teams have accomplished throughout the term.

It would also be possible to assess distinct sections of the document rather than waiting for the mid- and end-points of the semester. Essentially, each section can be critiqued based on execution and students could be assigned scores (or qualitative feedback) as deemed appropriate by the instructor.

Suggested Resources

S. Berkun, “Writing the Good Vision”, Making Things Happen, 2008, https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/making-things-happen/9780596517717/ch04.html [Accessed January 1, 2022].

IBM, “Vision Document”, Engineering Lifecycle Management, 2021, https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/elm/7.0.0?topic=requirements-vision-document [Accessed January 1, 2022].

OutSystems, Business Vision: Vision Document, (Feb. 08, 2018). [Online Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVr2f5pyT6w. [Accessed on Nov. 09, 2021].

“What Makes Vision Statements Ineffective?” Small Business – Chron.Com, https://smallbusiness.chron.com/vision-statements-ineffective-35572.html. Accessed 19 Feb. 2022.