Vision Core · Vision Statement · Module
Progress
Whether the organisation is closer than it was, established on evidence rather than on activity — because a decade-long vision is otherwise unexamined for a decade.
The idea
How it works
A vision at a ten-year horizon produces no feedback for years unless intermediate markers are designed deliberately. Without them, the only available evidence is activity, and activity is not progress.
The markers do not have to be precise. They have to be the kind of thing that could plausibly fail to move, because a marker that always moves is measuring effort rather than distance.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Design markers that could fail to move
A measure that rises regardless of whether you are getting closer is measuring activity.
- 02
Review annually and honestly
Once a year is enough for a decade horizon. Less than that and the vision goes unexamined until it is obviously wrong.
- 03
Allow the review to conclude “no closer”
A review that can only report progress is a report, not a review.
- 04
Decide in advance what would trigger revision
Naming the condition beforehand is what makes a later revision a decision rather than an embarrassment.
One level in
The components of progress
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
A marker that always moves is measuring effort. Design ones that could plausibly fail.
The other modules in vision statement
The statement
The articulation itself: a future state with a horizon attached, written so that someone outside the room could tell whether it had been reached.
LearnReachability
Whether the vision is actually attainable, on what horizon, and what would have to become true first — the half that separates ambition from fantasy.
LearnWhat it rules out
The opportunities the vision makes it wrong to take — without which it cannot settle an argument, which is the only thing a vision is used for under pressure.
Learn