The Project Vision is too often simplified to a financial return. There is ALWAYS much more to the Stakeholders Vision than this. Financial return cannot come at the expense of reputation and future opportunity…..although unfortunately there are many especially in the property development industry, who run this business model.

The Project Vision is essentially a business Vison Statement that is applied to an individual project. Remove the financial return component and then ask your stakeholders what they want to achieve and why they are doing this. There can be many stakeholder visions for the project including –

· Developing a long term reputation for reliability and service

· Affordability for the end buyer/user

· Sustainability and energy performance

· Image (Ego)

If you are finding it difficult to identify any Vision other than financial, then identify who your end buyers/users are, and identify what they would want from this product. Their satisfaction will drive the financial returns, and their requirements will become the Vision for the product.

Remember it is important to understand the Project Vision and the Stakeholder motivations, because it is these high level parameters that will dictate how you make decisions on Risk, Time, Scope, and Cost throughout the project.