Services | Mission Brief

I’m a big “mission statement” guy.  One of the first lessons I learned in this business (thanks, Kent!) was that a well-crafted mission statement with buy-in from the team can make the difference between project success and failure.  I basically won’t start any new project, initiative, etc without a written statement describing what we intend to accomplish, why it’s worth doing, and how we’ll know when we’re done.

As the years have gone on and I’ve had the opportunity to see inside of hundreds of organizations and teams, I’ve also learned that it’s also extremely useful to have a document that collects all the relevant, high-level project information so that it can be found easily and so that a quick review will tell anyone anything they need to know about the project.

I’m continually dismayed by organizations that start working as hard and fast as they can on a new project without determining (and documenting) what they’re trying to do, why, who is involved, success criteria, etc.  So over the years I’ve combined this crucial information into an artifact I call a Mission Brief.

You can certainly tailor your Mission Brief to fit your needs, and the document doesn’t need to be 100% complete before starting work, but the parts I’ve marked as Required* below really need to be in place before going any further.

Please note that “finished” Mission Brief documents look impressive, perhaps even daunting.  I promise that they do not start out looking like this.  Every single one of mine has started out as a mess — a dumping ground for meeting notes, random thoughts on the subject, research, definitions, etc, littered with “Work in Progress” call-outs.  Many, many large and small iterations, over days and weeks, result in the ultimate document that makes people go “Ooooo!” and “How did we live without this before?”

Your Mission Brief could include the following:

1. Project Information
   1. Official project name (Required*, else chaos awaits)
   2. Aliases or “also known as” (aka)
   3. Fun codename
   4. Link to strategic roadmap diagram or document, showing where this project fits
   5. Project status (e.g. Planning, Proposed, Approved, In Process, In Pilot, In Rework, In Production, In Review) (Required*)
   6. Link to technical design (e.g. a C4 Model for Visualizing Technical Design)
   7. Link to business entity-relationship (ERD) overview diagram
   8. Link to executable business process diagram (workflow model) source code repository
   9. Link to executable business rule diagram (decision models) source code repository
   10. Link to project tracking system (e.g. Jira) epic(s) (Required*)
2. Project Contacts
   1. RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix with email, instant message, or other contact information links (Required*)
3. Background
   1. Summary (how did we get here?)
4. Mission
   1. Summary statement (Required*)
   2. Scope, including what is not in scope (Required*)
   3. Process narrative
5. Long-Term Business Goals (Required*, tied to/supporting organizational goals)
6. Process Metrics (the measurable effects to be delivered)
7. Initial Features/Capabilities
8. Cross-Team Dependencies
   1. Team name and dependency type, e.g. “Marketing | Product Launch” (Required*)
9. Child Page Links
10. Glossary
    1. Project-specific terminology
11. Related Documentation

Let’s document the mission, it’s purpose, and those involved improving both internal alignment and external transparency!

#considerate-communication #strategic-roadmap #c4-model #erd #bpmn #dmn #user-stories