| name | draft-vision-strategy |
| description | Draft, critique, or revise product, team, company, or initiative strategy and vision documents. Use when Codex is asked to create a strategy memo, product vision, mission, strategic narrative, north-star story, direction-setting doc, or leadership/team alignment artifact based on Chase Seibert's "Define a Vision" and "Create a Strategy" approach. |
Draft Vision Strategy
Core Model
Use this skill to turn rough initiative context into a crisp strategy, a compelling vision, or both.
When both strategy and vision are requested, draft the strategy first unless the user explicitly asks for only vision. Strategy decides what to focus on; vision makes the chosen direction vivid enough for people to understand, remember, and want to build.
- Strategy is upward-facing. It makes the case to leadership that there is a credible plan to address the decisive business challenge.
- Vision is downward-facing. It aligns and energizes the team by connecting the work to users and to concrete future outcomes.
- Mission is optional. Use it as a one-sentence end-state for what will be true if the product or initiative succeeds.
Sources that shaped this workflow:
Intake
Extract as much as possible from the user's prompt. Ask at most a few focused questions only when the missing context would make the draft misleading.
Look for:
- Initiative name, organization, and year or time horizon
- Audience: executives, board, leadership team, builders, cross-functional partners, or customers
- Parent company/org strategy, business goals, constraints, and must-haves
- Users or customers, their jobs to be done, and current pain
- Current business challenge and suspected root cause
- Evidence: metrics, user research, market context, customer feedback, cost, risk, or execution data
- Strengths to exploit, weaknesses to address, and trade-offs leaders are willing to make
- Candidate actions already under consideration
- What should be excluded: roadmap details, pixel-perfect design, deep technical specs, or unrelated goals
If the user gives sparse context, produce a clearly labeled strawman and list the assumptions to validate.
Strategy Workflow
Draft a short strategy memo with these sections.
1. Title And Parent Context
Use a title like:
[Name] Strategy [Year]
[Optional link or reference to parent strategy]
State the scope plainly: company, org, team, product area, or initiative.
2. Diagnosis
Write 2-4 sentences that identify one decisive challenge and its cause. A strong diagnosis simplifies the problem space down to the critical factor the organization must address.
The diagnosis should:
- Explain why the current state is underperforming
- Name the root cause, not just trailing indicators
- Make clear how the challenge can be overcome
- Be backed by evidence, but not phrased as a goal
- Avoid wishful language such as "we need to grow" without a plan for overcoming the obstacle
Add one tight evidence paragraph or bullet list. Prefer the single most compelling data point over a dashboard dump.
3. Guiding Principles
Write 2-4 principles that help the organization make trade-offs. Each principle should clarify how to choose between plausible paths.
Useful shapes:
- Exploit our [strength] by [doing X] instead of [doing Y].
- Focus resources on [area] because [reason].
- Prefer [choice] when it helps us overcome [diagnosis].
Good principles are decision rules, not slogans. They should make it easier to say no.
4. Coherent Actions
Write 3-5 actions that are specific, feasible, and mutually reinforcing. These are not tiny implementation tasks, but they must be concrete enough that teams can begin acting.
Actions should:
- Follow from the diagnosis and principles
- Be achievable in the relevant planning horizon
- Focus resources, attention, or sequencing
- Include measurable outcomes when useful
- Avoid pretending the roadmap is already known when the strategy is still at a high level
For org-level strategy, actions may be broad mandates. For team-level strategy, actions can be more concrete.
5. Trade-Offs And Open Questions
Add a brief "What we will not do" section when it clarifies focus. Add open questions only when they represent real decisions or evidence gaps.
Vision Workflow
Draft the vision after the strategy has established focus.
1. Mission
Optionally start with a one-sentence mission in end-state form:
When this succeeds, [user/customer/business] will be able to [important outcome].
Keep it aspirationally possible. It does not need a strict timeline.
2. Vision Story
Write the vision as multiple concrete end-state scenes, usually from a user's perspective. Aim for a plausible three-year horizon.
The story should:
- Show how the user accomplishes important jobs to be done
- Include enough specifics to align mental models
- Avoid prescribing exact UI, product specs, technical specs, or roadmap order
- Make the future feel tangible for builders and stakeholders
- Include business end-states or success metrics only when they strengthen the vision
Use named personas or realistic roles when helpful. Show before/after contrast through what the user can now do, not through generic claims.
3. Visual Aid Notes
If visuals would help an audience understand the vision, suggest rough mocks, sketches, storyboards, or a concept video. Do not imply pixel-perfect designs are required at this stage.
4. FAQ
Add a short FAQ for predictable stakeholder questions, especially around scope, constraints, sequencing, and what is intentionally not included. Use the FAQ to capture feedback from repeated reviews.
Review Loop
Use feedback as part of the drafting process, not as a final approval ceremony.
For strategy:
- Get peer feedback first: are we aligned on the decisive challenge and most important actions?
- Get leadership feedback next: would they fund this initiative, and how does it relate to other strategies?
- Incorporate organizational feedback carefully: invite teams to add aligned actions without turning the strategy into a bottom-up wishlist.
For vision:
- Test with at least three audiences when possible.
- Listen for where people misunderstand the future state.
- Update the draft until executives can paraphrase it accurately and team members can explain it consistently.
- Expect meaningful revision over time as the team learns and context changes.
Quality Bar
Before finalizing, check:
- Strategy has one primary diagnosis, not a list of unrelated goals.
- Strategy actions are coherent and plausibly executable.
- Strategy uses evidence to support the diagnosis, not to disguise a target as a plan.
- Guiding principles create real trade-offs.
- Vision is concrete, user-centered, and feasible within roughly three years.
- Vision inspires builders without sneaking in roadmap, spec, or design commitments.
- Mission, strategy, and vision do not contradict each other.
- The document is short enough that its main idea can be remembered and repeated.
Output Templates
Use these shapes unless the user asks for a different format.
Strategy Memo
# [Name] Strategy [Year]
Parent context: [Link or short description, if any]
## Diagnosis
[2-4 sentences naming the decisive challenge, root cause, and how it can be overcome.]
Evidence:
- [Most compelling data point or observation]
- [Optional supporting evidence]
## Guiding Principles
1. [Decision rule]
2. [Decision rule]
3. [Decision rule]
## Actions
1. [Specific, feasible action with rationale or outcome]
2. [Specific, feasible action with rationale or outcome]
3. [Specific, feasible action with rationale or outcome]
## Trade-Offs
- We will [do/focus on X].
- We will not [do/focus on Y].
## Open Questions
- [Question to validate before finalizing]
Vision Memo
# [Name] Vision
## Mission
[One-sentence end-state, if useful.]
## Vision
[Scene 1 from a user/customer/team perspective.]
[Scene 2 showing another important job to be done or context.]
[Scene 3 showing the broader end-state, collaboration, business, or ecosystem impact.]
## Business End-States
- [Optional end-state or success metric]
## Visual Aid Ideas
- [Optional rough mock/storyboard/concept video idea]
## FAQ
**[Question]**
[Answer]
Combined Strategy And Vision
When asked for both, produce:
- Strategy
- Mission
- Vision
- FAQ
- Assumptions and open questions
