What is the excitement around V2MOM?

In short, business leaders can see that it works if you commit, develop the competency and manage them well.

When rolled-out well V2MOM has the potential to guide critical thinking, increase goal engagement, increase company alignment and accountability.

However, it’s the debates that go on around your V2MOMs is where much of the magic happens. Great V2MOMs will ensure that you generate excitement and stimulate creativity and innovation.

Like with other cascading goal frameworks like OKR, supporting processes like check-ins and structured team meetings are needed to keep the V2MOM current, accurate, and actionable, so progress happens.

The basics of V2MOM

The V2MOM acronym stands for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures. V2MOM is a powerful tool for individuals, teams, and organizations to shape strategy and set goals.

The same components can be used by the leadership team, departments, sub-teams, project teams, and individuals. In fact, the fact that a V2MOM always has the same components and questions is one of its key advantages.

As you work from organization level V2MOMs through departments and teams to individuals the context changes, and the V2MOM components become narrower in focus. For example, the C-suite’s answer to the Vision question won’t be the same as the regional sales team’s.

When implemented successfully the V2MOM program promises to align daily actions with long-term aspirations while increasing business transparency and company alignment.

Using the V2MOM goal-setting model

Typically, the organization starts implementing the V2MOM system at each level of the organization.

V2MOM (Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures) provides the flexibility to initiate company alignment via cascading processes on all levels, or with anyone in your organization.

Leaders prefer this framework for its scalability, in addition to its simplicity and ease of explanation. Through this framework, you’ll be able to force your teams to link their plans, projects, and daily activities to the business’s priorities while increasing internal transparency.

• Vision
  The Vision component of V2MOM is the long-term goal that an individual, team, or organization wants to achieve. It is the big picture that everyone is working towards.
• Values
  The Values component is the guiding principles that will be used to achieve the Vision. These are the foundational beliefs that will drive the actions of the individual, team, or organization.
• Methods
  The Methods component of V2MOM is the specific actions that will be taken to achieve the Vision. These are the specific steps that will be taken to reach the goal. These specific Methods then become the focus of Obstacles and Measures.
• Obstacles
  The Obstacles component is the potential roadblocks that will be encountered along the way. These are the challenges that must be overcome in order to achieve the Vision.
• Measures
  The Measures component of V2MOM is the way in which progress will be tracked. It is the metrics that will be used to measure the success of the Vision. This is an important part of V2MOM because it allows individuals, teams, and organizations to monitor their progress and make adjustments as needed.

What is the best way to implement V2MOM?

With any strategic framework, there is no right or wrong way to implement it.

To help you create a V2MOM you need to decide which parts of your organization has V2MOM’s. The Company will need one, as will departments. Do you also want to cascade to teams and project teams, and then individuals?

V2MOMs are not meant to be created by managers alone. Whether it’s the the leadership team V2MOM, the departments or a sub-team. Down to the Vision, they are all meant to be inclusive and collaborative.

The companies that use ZOKRI for V2MOM management and reporting tend to cascade down to the individual more often than not. With ZOKRI, like in Salesforce, everyone in the company can see everyone’s V2MOMs easily.

Needless to say, once you’ve decided, complete each element in the V2MOM framework and then commit to keeping it current at an agreed cadence.

A cascading V2MOM example to help you

Scenario

A fast growth technology company with 500 employees wants to continue their 100% annual growth rate. Cascading examples of their 2023 V2MOMs might look like this.

Company V2MOM example

Vision

Our vision is to become a leading provider of cloud hosting security infrastructure for the tens of thousands of global technology companies that service the global enterprise market. Minimizing all of the threats that could keep CEO and CTOs up at night.

Values

Trust
Trusted by our customers to be one step ahead of security threats.

Simplicity
Ridiculously easy to deploy our technology.

Efficiency
We look and act on opportunities to find smarter, more efficient ways of working.

People
Help our people grow, learn and develop as fast as our revenue.

Methods

These are our methods. For each method we have listed obstacles and have defined measures of success.

1. People – Continue to prioritize hiring and retaining talent.
2. Innovation – Learn what the threats are and create effective and innovative solutions.
3. User Experience – Make the deployment and use of our solutions much easier than competitors and minimize the time-to-value.
4. Awareness – Build a brand that is synonymous with cloud security.
5. Internationalize – Expand our global reach further by putting local teams in Europe, Asia and the Middle-East.

People

Obstacles

Recruiters market
It’s a tough market to hire with salary inflation running high. Our culture, learning and growth opportunities will be needed to off-set this and retain our people.

Measures

• No vacancies open longer than 120 days
• Employee Retention is > 95%
• Employee NPS > 8.5

Innovation

Obstacles

Keeping-up
Hackers are always finding new ways to hack systems and we need to know what they know ASAP.

Measures

Known vulnerabilities
New known vulnerabilities not solved within 7 days should be ZERO.

User Experience

Obstacles

Complexity
Much of what we do is really complicated and really hard to simplify.

Client know-how
Sometimes the right know-how is not employed by our customers.

Other priorities
Sometimes client stakeholders are busy on other prioritize which slows down our deployment.

Measures

Customer NPS
Improve Customer NPS from 7 to 8.5.

Time-to-value
Reduce time to value from 75 days to 45 days.

Awareness

Obstacles

Budgets
Building a brand is hard and expensive and we’ve a good budget, but it’s not huge so we need to be smart about how we use it.

Measures

SQLs
Grow SQLs from 12.5K to 20K.

Gartner
Be selected as the market leader.

Google
Grow organic traffic by 100% Y-on-Y.

Internationalization

Obstacles

Local Rules & Regulations
Sometimes local government don’t work at the pace that we need them to.

Measures

UK
Fully staffed and operational by 1 Jun.

Singapore
Fully staffed and operational by 1 Sep.

UAE
Fully staffed and operational by 1 Nov.

Team V2MOM example

Product Team V2MOM Aligned With Company V2MOM

Vision

From the moment you get a login we delight our customers with how we make the complicated simple, how we help them succeed at their jobs, and our proactivity – one step ahead.

Values

Prioritize what matters
We are adept at understanding risk and value and putting the right engineering tasks at the top of the list.

Constantly learning
We need to constantly learn about our customers roles, pain points and how we can support them.

Human contact
We should not hide behind email and text chat, talking human to human offers a rich layer of insight.

Data driven decisions
We gather insights and validate decisions with data.

UI and UX matters
As much as we’re a security product the User Interface and the User Experience of our product also needs to be world-class.

Methods

These are our methods. For each method we have listed obstacles and have defined measures of success.

1. Know The Enemy – Have people that live in the shadows watching and advising on new potential.
2. Wise Product Counsel – Have our best customers take part in a monthly Product Counsel to help us direct resources.
3. Product Analytics – Make sure we ask our our product analytics the right questions and it is setup to be insightful.
4. Agility – Live and breath agile to help us deliver more value faster.

Know The Enemy

Obstacles

It’s Dark
Our enemy lives in the shadows and they are hard to infiltrate.

Measures

We have 3 reliable sources of potential new risks that providing frequent insights.

Wise Product Counsel

Obstacles

Availability
It’s not always easy to get the right people together on a call.

Measures

A product counsel happens every month with at least 4 customers on the call.

Product Analytics

Obstacles

Complexity
Some of what we need needs data science and engineering support.

Measures

Software set-up
Our product software is fully set-up to deliver what is needed.

Agility

Obstacles

Need high levels of agile competency
We need to ensure high levels of agile competency is present across the product and engineering team.

Measures

Training
All PMs have passed the training requirement

Peer-to-Peer Learning
Internal group to share experiences/learnings once a month

Tracking V2MOMs

Like any goal, if you set a goal and it is forgotten the goal becomes less valuable and the less likely you are to achieve it. To stop this from happening you need to build V2MOM into standard business management processes.

Check-ins, one-on-one’s and team meetings
Ensure everyone is check-in their V2MOMs and having them as part of their agenda in team meetings and one-on-one’s.

North Star
Use your V2MOM as your North Start and when making decisions on how to prioritize time and resources your V2MOM refer to your V2MOM to help ensure you’re investing in the right areas.

Quarterly Reviews
On a quarterly basis share and discuss the progress made in a quarterly staff meetings and any changes to your V2MOM proposed for the coming Quarter.

ZOKRI is a great way to help teams create and track V2MOMs. The software that takes care of the whole process for you, making the creation, updates and ongoing reporting efficient.

Who should use V2MOM?

No matter how big or small your organization is, getting everyone on the same page is a challenge.

Your company is an incredibly long rowing boat, each employee is holding an oar, and 5000m down the water is a finishing line and a gold medal.

What happens next depends on the level of alignment, synchronicity, and your ability to find a rowing cadence that works. You might skim quickly across the water with a minimal level of splash. It could equally be comedic and you watch the boat sinking within a few attempts to get moving.

So the need for V2MOMs is as universal as the need for alignment, focus, accountability and clearly defined finishing line. For that reason V2MOMs are a fit for a wide range of organization sizes.

Small sized SMB that need direction are a great fit as they often don’t have a formal planning document and V2MOM can be a lightweight solution for this.

A tech start-up or scale-up wanting a way to guide, align and inspire a growing organization are another great fit. They want to punch above their weight, fully utilize every resource at their disposal.

Companies like Salesforce are obviously an enterprise organization that has made V2MOM work. Large enterprise companies not using V2MOM or other goal setting frameworks will need to support plan the roll-out carefully, but the value is there to be unlocked.

Conclusion

V2MOMs (Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures) have obviously worked for Salesforce. The elements within the V2MOM in themselves are not revolutionary or unique to V2MOM. They are standard business and team management elements. V2MOM does bring the elements together which in-turn facilitate conversations, creates alignment, accountability and forward motion.

Having the associated tools and processes that make the creation, updates and reporting easy is going to reduce the risk of V2MOM being a failed Initiative.

What is the value of the initiative?

• Most strategies do not get executed yet they are obviously of material value.
• Teams that participate in goal setting are more engaged and more likely to achieve their goals – most teams do not have formal goals they can refer to.
• Individuals that have goals set as part of a performance management and appraisal process are going to learn, develop and are more likely to be retained for longer.
• Goal transparency along with accountability are impactful cultural traits.