“Project management is like juggling three balls: time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling three balls and swapping balls from time to time.” — G. Reiss
How do you convince a team of venture capitalists to bet on you?
Or how do you even convince internal stakeholders to bet on your idea and your ability to execute?
A Vision Scope presentation can be one of your best tools in your project management toolbox for project success.
Building a great Vision Scope requires skill, but with practice you can build this skill so that pitching projects gets better, faster, and easier.
In some ways, it’s like a preview to the epic adventure or like a movie trailer of your exciting project ahead.
The Art of the Vision Scope Presentation
At patterns & practices, we use Vision Scope milestones to sell management on how we’ll change the world.
Knowing the vision and scope for a project is actually pretty key.
The vision will motivate you and your team in the darkest of times. It gets you back on your horse when you get knocked off. The scope is important because it’s where you’ll usually have to manage the most expectations of what you will and won’t do.
Thinking in Terms of Venture Capitalists
When I do a vision scope, I think of the management team as the venture capitalists (a tip from a friend.)
This helps me get in the right mindset.
I have to convince them that I have the right problem, the right solution, the right customers, the right impact, the right team, the right cost and the right time-frame.
Hmmmm … I guess there’s a lot to get right. A template helps.
The right slide template helps because it forces you to answer some important questions.
How To Structure a Vision / Scope Presentation
Here’s the template I used from my last vision scope meeting:
Vision / Scope
- Agenda
- Problem
- Vision
- Approach
- Prioritized Tests for Success
- Scope
- Key Activities
- Deliverables
Execution:
- Execution
- Team
- Budget
- Schedule
- Risks
- Asks
- Go/No Go
It’s implicitly organized by problem, solution, deliverables and execution. While the slides are important, I found that the real success in vision scope isn’t the particular slides. It’s buy in to the vision, rapport in the meeting, and trust in the team to do the job.
What works for you?
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J.D.,
I have been using this template several time extremely effectively.
First it was a snap creating a solid presentation either to customers or management second it covered all aspects so after the presentation i had really few or none questions to clarify
Thank you!
@ Alik
Great to hear!
As simple as the template seems, it really does help cover your bases. More importantly, it re-enforces a key lesson – sell the vision first. If people first buy into the vision, then it’s easier to get buy-in for the execution.
Hi J.D,
Really enjoyed this piece as at the time of writting this i’m using it to put together a PowerPoint to kick off a new project.
I was wondering if you had an actual example of the template that you could share so i could get a better feel for the ‘context’ for each slide ?
Many Thanks Again
John
Actually I have been using this template several time extremely effectively.
First it was a snap creating a solid presentation either to customers or management second it covered all aspects so after the presentation i had really few or none questions to clarify
Thank you!