Artifact: Business Vision

Business Vision	The Business Vision defines the set of goals and objectives the business modeling effort is aiming at.
Role:	Business-Process Analyst
Optionality:	Can be excluded.
Template:	Word Template HTML Template
More Information:	Guidelines:Business Vision Checkpoints:Business Vision
Purpose Brief Outline Timing Responsibility Tailoring Annotated Outline (hyperlinks into HTML template in a new window)

Input to Activities:

Capture a Common Business Vocabulary

Define the Business Architecture

Maintain Business Rules

Output from Activities:

Set and Adjust Goals

Purpose

The Business Vision document captures very high-level objectives of a business modeling effort. It provides input to the project-approval process, and is therefore intimately related to the Business Case, as well as the Vision document of a software engineering effort. It communicates the fundamental "why's and what's" related to the project and is a gauge against which all future decisions should be validated.

The Business Vision document will be read by managers, funding authorities, business workers in business modeling, and developers in general.

Brief Outline

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose

1.2 Scope

1.3 Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations

1.4 References

1.5 Overview

2. Positioning

2.1 Business Opportunity

2.2 Problem Statement

2.3 Product Position Statement

3. Stakeholder and Customer Descriptions

3.1 Market Demographics

3.2 Stakeholder Summary

3.3 Customer Summary

3.4 Customer Environment

3.5 Stakeholder Profiles

3.5.1 <Stakeholder Name>

3.6 Customer Profiles

3.6.1 <Customer Name>

3.7 Key Stakeholder or Customer Needs

3.8 Alternatives and Competition

4. Business Modeling Objectives

4.1 <anObjective>

4.2 <anotherObjective>

5. Constraints

6. Quality Ranges

7. Precedence and Priority

8. Other Requirements

8.1 Applicable Standards

8.2 System Requirements

8.3 Performance Requirements

8.4 Environmental Requirements

Appendix A—Objective Attributes

Timing

The Business Vision document is created early in the inception phase, and it is used as a basis for the Business Case (see Artifact: Business Case) and the first draft of the (project) Vision document (see Artifact: Vision).

Responsibility

A business-process analyst is responsible for the integrity of the Business Vision document, ensuring that:

Tailoring

The full version of this document is only applicable if you are doing business creation or business reengineering. If the purpose of your effort is business improvement, you may still produce a Business Vision, but only focus on the sections titled Introduction, Positioning, and Business Modeling Objectives.

Various documents may already exist in your organization that cover some of the topics of the Business Vision. In such cases, there is no need to do the work again and you could let the Business Vision document refer to existing documents.