The Vision Document

What is a Vision Document?

To achieve a truly collaborative and cooperative working environment, it is essential that everyone involved in the project share the same vision. The vision document provides a shared understanding amongst developers and stakeholders and provides an overview of the system to be developed. It is our first analysis artifact that proposes our solution and generates excitement for our approach.

The vision document, then, is not based on wishful thinking, but on practical realities. Cost and time are factors of all software development efforts. Therefore, the Vision document must be credible and believable – stakeholders must buy into it. More importantly, they need to buy into the team proposing the vision.

In order to create our vision, we need to:

1. Identify and build relationships with Stakeholders. A stakeholder is someone of some “thing” with a vested interest in the behavior of the system. We need to understand their business processes, their needs, and desires so that our vision protects their interests.
2. Explore different scenarios for reasonableness and practicality. We can’t take years to produce a new system and we need to show progress early and often. Some ideas will need to be saved for later enhancements.
3. Promote our vision. As our understanding deepens and our vision develops, promote it to upper management; drop hints and provocative tidbits. We are our own evangelists until we can proselytize others. Get others excited about our vision; enlist their support.

At the same time, we can work on our image by:

1. Building confidence and credibility. We will build confidence and credibility by complying with procedure; being receptive to suggestions and criticisms; carefully and thoroughly enhancing the current system; offering suggestions that protect the interests of all parties. Ultimately, we build confidence and credibility by projecting these traits.
2. Managing our image. We are professionals: Assertive, not aggressive; Courteous but not adulatory; Respectful, not venerating. How do we want to be perceived?
3. Taking the initiative. We don’t have to be micro-managed and we not a burden to management. Once we know our management’s goals, we work with little to no direction. We are self-starters that pick up the ball and run with it.
4. Being team players. We are self-directed and forge our own path but we work well with other groups and management; we are cooperative rather than competitive; we work collaboratively but are quick to recognize outstanding individual achievement.

In order to become a model development team, one that sets the quality and development standards that other groups utilize, we need more than vision; we also need the integrity that makes the vision believable.