Backfilling

Vision statements are lofty.

You have to imagine a time and place that doesn’t exist, and see how the work you’re doing now has made a positive change.

A very obscure metaphor for this: In the value pricing world, there’s a concept called “scope last” where rather than scoping a project and pricing it, you agree on a price first then write the scope to fit that price.

So rather than scope first, where the question is “these are all the things we need, how much will it cost?”, the question in scope last becomes “this is the outcome we need, how much stuff can we do to achieve it”?

It’s a somewhat backwards approach that takes time to understand and become comfortable with.

A powerful vision statement works in a similar way to the “scope last” concept. You set a crazy big lofty goal–the outcome–then backfill all the steps needed to achieve it.

Getting started with this is one of the topics covered in the free workshop running at 3pm AEST on Friday November 25th. We’ll cover how to write no-fluff mission and vision statements that create powerful filters for decision making. Register here.