Summary
Motley: Forget a vision - it will just cloud your judgment!
Maven: A vision statements guides your decision making. Ensure every project has a vision and create your own personal vision statement.
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[Context: The story picks up the first time Maven and Motley meet at Cynthesis Software]
Maven: Hey. You must be Motley. I've heard a lot about you.
Motley: Great things I bet! You must be the new guy. Supposed to come in and clean this place up, eh?
Maven: Well, I'm not a janitorial engineer, but I'm sure I'll come up with some ideas for improvement. I do have a general vision for the development team though.
Motley: Vision? Vision? We don't need no stinking vision! Visions just cloud your judgment.
Maven: How so?
Motley: What I am doing changes on a day-to-day basis. There is no way one statement created by a bunch of marketing weenies could possibly have any impact on what I do.
<Marketing>: All whiney geeks - get back to twiddling bits now!
Maven: I disagree. A vision helps guide your decisions - even down to the development level. Should we add a feature that will require a third party library forcing the cost of our software to rise by $500 when we want to make our solution accessible to very small businesses? Probably not - unless we can find another way to stay within our vision.
Motley: Marketing only. I don't need to worry about that.
Maven: How about a personal vision statement? Do you have one?
Motley: What for? I do just fine, thank you very much.
Maven: Given a set of tasks, a vision can help guide you on the priorities of your tasks. For example, if family is important and is reflected in your vision statement and you have a choice between going out to dinner with your wife and kid vs. out drinking with the boys, your personal vision can help you make this decision.
Motley: Sounds really corny to me! I guess creating a one statement summary of what I am all about could be fun, so maybe one day I'll give that shot.
Maven: Don't just focus on you, but also your project. Every project needs a vision and goals even below the marketing level. Summarize the main goals of the development team and let that guide your decisions throughout the development cycle.
Motley: As long as I don't have to rely on those marketing weenies! I'm not sure how to go about creating this vision thing though.
Maven: Let's do lunch. I'll give you some tips on creating a vision statement. We'll get you up and running with some guidance - your own, I might add - in no time.
Maven's Pointer: Sometimes there is confusion between a vision and a mission. I like to simplify it this way: the vision is where we are going, and the mission is how we are going to get there.
Maven's Resources: Create Your Personal Vision Statement, Basics of Developing Mission, Vision and Values Statements