What are the common pitfalls to avoid when revising IT vision and mission statements?

I think its important to engage with stakeholders and colleagues outside of IT and understand how they see and use your services as part of this process. Their understanding and experience will enable you to gain insight as to what IT is doing for the business, where is the gap and what would they like to see change. You also need to leverage critical friends in the business throughout the stages outlined in this post.

Desired state is a tricky proposition and would challenge anyone to proceed with an iteration/agile state of mind! Technology changes rapidly, business outcomes as well, and what is desired today may look so different in several months or years. What’s the silver bullet? Be open to course correction and interactions along the way!

Think about the culture of your team and what you REALLY stand for and want to be when you grow up. Everyone can throw words at the wall that mean nothing to the team. Think about what you do best, what you value, and what your team strives for.

Think about change management. It's ok for the managers and leadership to take a few stabs at your vision and mission statements, but before you finalize them, ask EVERYONE on your team (even if it is a large team) for comments and suggestions. Wherever possible, add the thermometers in your team, regardless of their role and position, in your brainstorming meetings so that the entire team has better buy-in. The more people you involve in the vision/mission definition process, the more buy-in you will have. One consideration: when you have a lot of people, you need to control and manage that brainstorming process to keep it timely.

Vision and mission, yes, they should be defined, even if only to increase empowerment and provide a sense of stability. Both must be energizing, motivational and inspirational for the team.

You want to validate across various stakeholders. Some of these will be technical, others non-technical. Review with different business units to understand impacts, sales team to get client perspective, & within the IT department as well. This is a critical time to get buy-in across the organization.

Key is whom one validates them, I found in my career that best is to get input from a close business partner in a non IT role - head of Operations, COO, and alike.

Communicating the vision is a multi component process, and includes IT internal, business constituents, leadership. Key is to cater the message to the audience, be authentic and believe in what you communicate. I have seen leaders who read slides (BAD!), leaders who “recite talking points” (people can see through it).

This is your opportunity to get buy in and align vision. Meet people where they congregate, this might within individual team discussions, guilds, or town halls. The point is the message is about them and how they benefit from this vision. It's also a great opportunity to highlight how different individuals were involved in creating the vision.

What I have found helpful to grounding stakeholders in your mission and vision is to make sure they understand how they fit in or whats in it for them. Technology staff who understand how their role connects to how IT delivers its mission and what the department is building towards will be more engaged in delivering on both elements. External stakeholders who understand how they will benefit from the mission and vision will be ready advocates for your team's work.

In 2023 IT vision and mission statements are like moving parts or a living thing. Agility and teamwork is required to navigate the significant challenges that await. Realtime planning, agility, flexibility and adaption to all sorts changes are not going to be easy, being perfectly frank. Feedback from stakeholders in all directions is key to have buy in for your collective living plan. Talk more it makes a difference.