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Let’s say you need to get started with a new project. There would probably be a lot of tasks and obstacles waiting for you ahead. But before you begin this development journey you need to formulate a comprehensive project vision. This is a concept that should be understandable for your stakeholders and team members, the latter should also be inspired, focused, and motivated. The clear project vision is a must if your aim is to create a successful project, make consistent steps, monitor progress, and understand what exactly you are trying to achieve.
Project Vision is able to address the most crucial question: “Why should this or that project be made?” The development of any project cannot begin if the team does not understand the initial problem it aims to resolve. A vision is expressed in a form of a statement which is a clear description of what should happen after the project is created. In other words, this statement is a short summary describing what both the stakeholder and developers team try to resolve and achieve in the end.
Now when you know what project vision is, let’s speak about the main requirements for creating an effective and clear project vision.
- Summarize your ideas. The best way to formulate a perfect statement is to summarize your project vision and write it in one powerful sentence. This phrase should be strong and reflect the whole idea and its importance.
- Address people, process, technology. These three elements are the key. When your stakeholders come to you searching for a solution to their crucial problems, they have some doubts and concerns. So your main task is to explain what benefits your stakeholder and their business will get in the end. You need to address the main pain points, specify what technology is going to be used, what processes are involved, and how a new project will change and improve the current situation the client’s facing.
- Emphasize the importance of a project. You and your client should both have an understanding of the true project’s purpose. It is important to explain how the implementation of a solution will help the client’s business to obtain the desired outcomes.
- Create a project vision document. When you are negotiating a project many essential details may slip your attention. But if you have a list of key questions this may help you and your client to identify what kind of solution is required and what business processes it can help to improve.
What is a project vision document?
The first question you may ask when you hear about a project vision document is “Who should be responsible for creating it and discussing the project with the client?” Based on our experience, we can say that this task should be delegated to business analysts. They help to research the market, check out what trends exist, what competitors your client has, and what solutions they offer. They analyze the current business situation of your particular client, identify all possible risks, and offer necessary solutions.
As you understand, a project vision document should address the most crucial questions regarding the client’s business, customers, productivity issues, performance issues, and desired business goals. Here, at Altamira, we pay special attention to every client and always use a project vision document. Are you wondering what questions it includes? We are ready to share this information with you.
Discover the nature of your client’s business
Before discussing any particular issues you need to understand what exactly your clients do. Ask them to provide a general description of their business or a startup they are planning to launch. But do not forget about such details as their current workflow and its peculiarities. This will help to identify what work areas require improvements.
Specify the main problems
It is preferable to create a list of 2-3 biggest problems that your client wants to resolve with the help of software. This will help to identify what exactly is expected from software development. Don’t forget to ask how your client copes with productivity issues at the moment without any software. Or maybe there is any other existing alternative to software optimization your client makes use of.
Ask about objectives the client puts for the solution
Let’s say you’ve discovered that your client is involved in the supply chain. His employees process numerous orders manually every day, there are a couple of warehousing issues and customer service is also not the best. So probably the main objectives of your client would be to digitalize and automate employee’s workflow, implement a warehouse management system and maybe some holistic CRM to create and process all orders faster.
Discuss every objective with the client
And make sure you’ve got all of them. It is also necessary to talk about how a new solution will change the current flow. You may even try to describe a new flow and user scenarios.
Explore the competitors
If your client has any competitors then they likely have a software or a new approach that helps to cope with the main business issues. In the process of collecting information about the competitors, you can immerse yourself deeper into the professional sphere and offer the most relevant solution to your client.
Learn customer profiles
To develop the right solution and do not miss a thing, you should understand what the customer segment your clients are aiming to attract. To identify the customer profile correctly you should have at your disposal information about the customer’s age, gender, location, hobbies, software preferences, profession, goals, and challenges.
Define a unique value proposition
Every project needs a statement highlighting the clear benefits a person will get after choosing and using it. Value proposition helps to demonstrate that this particular project is different, it is the best in its segment and therefore is worth paying attention to.
Think about monetization
Depending on the specific nature of your client’s business, they can consider implementing a monetization method. We have already covered this topic in one of our articles. So before adding a monetization option, it would be preferable to check out the projects similar to the one your client wants to create and see which method is applied to them.
Discuss key performance metrics
It is important to create a list of the main performance metrics your client needs to improve. You need to be aware of what figures your clients strive to change and on which metrics they pin great hopes. This will help you to understand what factors your client relies on while assessing if the developed project is successful and works as it was expected.
For E.g. the client’s employees spend 5 hours a day to process all orders and insert all information manually. However, the targeted order processing time is half of the current number. This is a key metric you will be focused on when developing a project.
Take into account all business opportunities
Apart from obvious benefits your client will get after developing a solution, try to describe what other advantages their business can get. Yes, your main goal is to offer solutions to the main issues, but you also may see other business opportunities that can be added to the project and make it even better for a client. Whether you have some other great features in mind or can offer a new better approach to resolving an existing problem, don’t miss a chance to discuss this with a client.
To conclude
You should understand that the project vision document does not describe how exactly the project will be created, what its cost will be, who will be doing what, what technologies are going to be applied, or what time-frames will be set.
Project vision document focuses mainly on understanding the client better, discovering their main challenges, and ways to resolve them. It provides a clear description of a future project, the outcomes that can change the business for the better, and all benefits and new opportunities your client will get afterward. A project vision document can help to eliminate all client’s concerns and initiate project development.