Vision & Mission

Why you exist right now, and the future state you're working toward — set once, before anything else cascades from it.

Try It

The first thing a Plan group actually needs, before OKRs have anything to cascade from or Strategic Planning has anything to scan the landscape in service of. Three related but distinct statements, usually confused for one another:

Vision

The future state you're working toward if the mission succeeds.

Mission

Why you exist right now: the problem you solve, for whom, today.

Values

How you operate and decide while getting there, especially when holding them is costly.

This is one rung above where most individual teams start — Team's Product Vision & Strategy takes company Vision/Mission/Values as a given and translates them into one product's bets. It's also where Strategic Planning's own Formulate step picks up — once Vision and Mission are set here, that cascade carries them forward: scan the landscape, cascade into plans, measure, adjust.

Examples
Apple
Vision: technology so intuitive it disappears into the experience.
Mission: make tools that amplify human creativity and capability.
Values: design and privacy held as non-negotiable, even when they slow a launch down.
Patagonia
Vision: a future where business gives back more to nature than it takes.
Mission: in business to save our home planet.
Values: environmental activism over quarterly growth — including its own ads telling customers not to buy a jacket they didn't need.
LEGO
Vision: invent the future of play.
Mission: inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.
Values: "only the best is good enough" — quality and imagination over shipping fast.

Try It

Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude, or whatever AI tool you use:

Help me draft Vision, Mission, and Values statements for my organization or team, one sentence each. Ask me what the future looks like if we succeed (Vision), what problem we solve and for whom today (Mission), and one value we'd actually hold even when it costs us something (Values) — push back if my answers are too generic to act on.