The Real World

Okay, now we know the difference between the mission, vision, and problem, but in the “real world” you never get them in this order. Your boss or project sponsor will say, “Here is your mission,” without any mention of a problem statement. It is possible that some discussion of the sponsor’s vision of the end result will take place, but even that may be fairly sketchy. So the first order of business for a project team is to develop these into a form that everyone will accept.

The major “political” problem you may encounter is that the sponsor will undoubtedly have given you a mission based on his definition of the problem to be solved. Sometimes his definition will be incorrect, and you will have to confront this. Otherwise, you will spend a lot of the organization’s money, only to find that you have developed the right solution to the wrong problem.