Crystallize Your Vision into a V2MOM
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain what a V2MOM includes.
- Describe the benefits of creating a V2MOM for an innovation project.
- Lead your team in writing your innovation project’s V2MOM.
V2MOM–huh?
At Salesforce, we stay aligned as a company because every single employee defines a V2MOM—a charter that states the individual’s vision, values, methods, obstacles, and measures.
Throughout the year, we all engage in a dynamic process from bottom to top, and top to bottom, of sharing goals, ideas, and opportunities. Then at the start of the fiscal year, CEO Marc Benioff and his leadership team create their V2MOMs based on all the ideas they’ve heard for how to drive growth and success. Their V2MOMs are published on Chatter and then, like dominoes, all employees write and share theirs.
What’s the benefit? The mandate of each employee is available to read at any time, and we hold each other accountable to these charters. Also, the five components speak to the fundamental questions that your sponsor or CEO asks when deciding whether to green-light your innovation project.
- Vision—What’s your goal?
- Values—Why does it matter?
- Methods—How will you achieve it?
- Obstacles—What challenges will impede your success?
- Measures—How will you measure your performance?
Using a V2MOM as a Manifesto
It’s easy to lose track of your goals with innovation work. Successful intrapreneurs don’t lose focus; otherwise, they won’t be trusted to invest time and resources into future explorations of big ideas.
Use a V2MOM to impress on your executive sponsor that you’ll apply rigor, structure, and professionalism during this process. It also provides a shared framework to help your entire team evaluate ideas as they come up.
How to Write a Successful V2MOM
Schedule an afternoon to work on the V2MOM with your core team and then plan for your steering committee to add ideas, review, and sign off. Here are a few things to think about for each section. We also provide an example of what the Aqua Blue team would say for each.
Vision
Inside Salesforce, we renew our V2MOMs at least twice a year. Unlike the vision created in an overall brand promise, we aspire to something in the next 12–18 months. And for an innovation project, it signifies a promise you want to make to your customer so that they feel inspired.
For Aqua Blue: Offer a futuristic experience that provides an affordable escape from daily life.
Values
Values are the core beliefs you want your team to live by while exploring this innovation project. In fact, plan to post your values on the wall. Things like “think big, spend small,” and “fail fast” are examples of values that lead to successful solutions
For Aqua Blue: Customers first. Exceed expectations. Be frictionless. Be surprising. Be game-changing.
Methods
Speak to the key aspects of your plan. Which activities will you pursue to achieve your vision? For example, if Aqua Blue wants to create a futuristic experience that relies on cutting-edge technology, it needs to invest in technology.
For Aqua Blue: Approach our customers’ needs with a beginner’s mind. Create a mobile experience that eliminates friction and brings delight. Invest in the best technology and partner relationships to deliver results.
Obstacles
Identify 3–5 things that you must overcome to succeed and that you want your executive sponsor to help you with. List formidable barriers, like winning hearts and minds despite an app that flopped last year. Don’t list tasks that you don’t want your boss or other leaders to concern themselves with because they’re just part of the process. For example, vetting and running due diligence on potential technology partners is not an obstacle. It’s just a method or activity that you have to complete.
For Aqua Blue: Customer adoption despite last year’s mobile app fiasco.
Measures
Choose metrics that can be quantified. Net Promoter Score (NPS), revenue growth, cost reduction, customer acquisition, retention, publicity hits, and employer brand perception rankings are examples of common, innovation-oriented measures.
For Aqua Blue: App downloads, NPS, revenue growth, and repeat bookings
Remember, your V2MOM is a powerfully simple, transparent alignment and accountability tool. When you introduce it, be prepared for your executive sponsor to want to share it with the CEO, executive director, or board. Hopefully, you create a V2MOM that your leadership helps go viral within your company. Great job!
Now it’s time to figure out what your project idea really is. To do that, you have to get to know your customer.