Organisational and Personal planning with a V2MOM
Ready to write your own V2MOM? Should you ask your ”MOM” how? Probably not.
Since its startup beginnings in 1999 with four employees, to its present day 70,000+ employees (and $160 Billion market cap) Salesforce has maintained an organisational alignment with one simple tool - the ‘V2MOM’. V2MOM was the brainchild of Salesforce founder and co-CEO Marc Benioff, who has said that it is "the biggest secret of Salesforce.com's success.” So what is it? V2MOM is a management process and acronym standing for vision, values, mission, objectives, and measures. It was implemented in the first few weeks of operation at Salesforce and has continued to be the guiding light today. The V2MOM enables you to clarify what you’re doing, and then communicate it clearly to the entire company. It boils down to five questions, which create a framework for alignment and leadership:
Vision — what do you want to achieve?
Values — what’s important to you?
Methods — how do you get it?
Obstacles — what is preventing you from being successful?
Measures — how do you know you have it?
The five parts of the V2MOM give us a detailed map of where we are going and an understanding of how to get there.
Vision:
A vision is your guiding force - answering the question ‘What world do you want to create?’
"What is the vision for what I want to achieve?’ That’s the first question that must be asked, because if you aren’t crystal clear on where you want to go, good luck trying to get there.” - Marc Benioff
Values:
Ask yourself, “What’s important to me about this goal? What are the values supporting the vision?” After making a list of values, rank them in order of importance — if everything is a priority, nothing is.
Methods:
Methods can be used as a step by step roadmap of what needs to happen for you and your team to accomplish your organisation’s larger vision. Establish the methods for implementing your vision and values. This part of the framework outlines all the actions and steps that everyone needs to take to get the job done. You should also rank these methods in order of priority.
Obstacles:
The fourth part identifies the obstacles you might have to overcome to achieve your vision. What challenges, problems, and issues are standing between you and achieving success? Which obstacles are the most critical to resolve, and how will you resolve them?If methods are the steps you need to take to accomplish the vision, obstacles are the things that might stand in the way of accomplishing your vision. As Benioff explains,
“The obstacles identified the challenges, problems, and issues we would have to overcome to achieve our vision.” - Marc Benioff
Measures:
Finally, tackle the problem of coming up with the appropriate measures. How will you know when you are successful? You need data and metrics to determine what success looks like. Measures are the quantifiable results you’d like to achieve to achieve your vision.
Once your V2MOM is complete share it, and keep it updated. The V2MOM is not meant to be tucked away in a drawer and forgotten about (and should be looked at far more regularly than an annual or quarterly review).If you want to learn more about the V2MOM, or want a hand in making your own I can highly recommend checking out the Trailhead module that discusses them here.
Perhaps Eisenhower said it best,
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”
See you on the Trail.