V2MOM Planning Process for Startups
January 15, 2012 1 Comment
In Marc Benioff’s book Behind the Cloud he talks about the V2MOM planning process he used at Salesforce.com to grow it into the largest SaaS company in the world. The goal with V2MOM is to create alignment from the CEO through to every front-line employee. V2MOM represents vision, values, methods, obstacles, and metrics.
A key aspect of V2MOM is that it is done at the corporate level, each department, and each individual. Here are more details of each:
- Vision – big picture idea for the next 12 months
- Values – the main 3-5 values for the company
- Methods – specific tactics to achieve desired goals
- Obstacles – openly talk about things that are working against success
- Metrics – key performance indicators
Again, these five items are addressed by every level and every individual in the organization. Building alignment in a startup, especially as it achieves significant economies of scale is difficult. The amount of communication required grows faster than headcount. V2MOM is a great approach to addressing alignment.
What else? What are your thoughts on the V2MOM planning process for startups?
About David Cummings
Great blog! Alignment is really difficult and I will look into this v2mom. Reminded me of the one company that brings alignment it to another level, UPS. They use balance scorecard and it is used from top of ivory tower in Atlanta across the globe for delivery driver in the streets of India. Amazing alignment structure brought together via shared values, understood roles, and connected metrics.