“If you don't know where you are going, that's where you'll end up.”

—Yogi Berra

Forward thinking is central to all planning, and it makes perfect sense that to successfully plan for new products, you must first have a specific destination.

Although the word “vision” has been overused and abused, it’s still the best term to describe where a corporation, business unit or product team is headed.  Jack Welch drove GE to unprecedented success with a clear strategic vision used to drive specific corporate activities in the intended direction. Of course, not everyone needs to generate a vision for a $300B company, but the same concept can be equally powerful to drive the success of a new market entry or growing a product line.

This article describes the Vision Molecule™—a tool for translating your organization’s vision into strategic initiatives and measurable goals to help your team drive planning success.

Once you have a clear image of your organizational or specific product-line future, ask yourself:

1. How are you translating this vision into specific directives, and

2. How can you confirm you have a plan that accomplishes your vision?

The Vision Molecule answers these questions as your first step to successful product planning.

WHAT is the Vision Molecule?

The Vision Molecule (Figure 1) is a tool that guides a team to link the central vision to a set of initiatives and goals to make your vision actionable. This relationship of vision to goals serves two purposes:

1. It identifies specific goals that must be obtained in the planning process

2. The specific goals become the metrics for measuring your success.

GE’s current CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, provides a good example of using this method to drive planning in a July 2004 Business 2.0 article. The following diagram (Figure 2) illustrates how his vision for high-margin growth included:

1. The initiative of identifying “growth platforms”

2. The goal to identify 5 potential opportunities to generate $100M in new revenue over 3 years, the specific nature of which enabled GE’s leaders to focus and deliver on the vision. 

Figure 2: The Vision/Initiative/Goals Cycle

WHY it works

An interesting phenomenon occurs when you create specific goals, such as “Provide $3M in profit from the XYZ product line.” Specific goals become challenges for a team to solve. Once a team has a specific challenge to focus on, they can work together to find a solution. And solving problems is how technology-driven teams thrive.

Using this simple tool in a group environment enhances your chances of planning success because:

1. While a vision statement may be interpreted vaguely, measurable goals are unmistakable.

2. The discussion needed to expand the vision with measurable goals allows for divergent views and leads to agreement on specific initiatives and desired outcomes.

3. With the vision transformed into quantifiable goals with specific timeframes, teams recognize problems as challenges they can solve.

HOW it works

The Vision Molecule tool enables your planning lead or entire team to break down your strategic vision into multiple initiatives, along with specific goals that support them. The “molecule’s” organic nature provides a flexible framework that enables a team to work more collaboratively than with a structured list.

To see how this works in a corporate situation, we’ve provided a completed Vision Molecule example from a client case study. In this example (Figure 3), Digipix has started with a high-level vision—to be the “premiere provider of digital picture solutions for the home”—and evolved to specific goals, such as “capture 80% of IP-Connected frame sales.”

Figure 3: DigiPix strategy—from high-level vision to specific goals

WHO should use it

The Virtual Molecule works best when used in a cross-functional team environment; it is of high value to all of the following groups when initiating planning or trying to clarify a strategic direction:

1. C-level executives for corporate or business-unit strategic planning

2. Product and Marketing management’s planning of product/service strategy

3. Project leaders and teams defining the expected project results

HOW to use it

This tool is most effective when starting a product-planning process to clearly establish goals to drive your planning activities. In the DigiPix example, specific goals were developed to guide the new product team’s work and provide measurable success metrics.

Summary

The Vision Molecule is a powerful tool that can help your team create actionable goals aligned with your strategic vision, efficiently exploring divergent views and building consensus. Remember, a strategic vision is applicable only to the environment in which it was created, so plan on reviewing your vision often.

Download the Vision Molecule template—FREE

To download the FREE Vision Molecule template—along with step-by-step instruction and a completed sample—just click here.

By Dorian Simpson and Ed de la Fuente 

Done

© 2009 Planning Innovations Inc.