Using a V2MoM for Business Planning

Business PlanningBenjamin Franklin’s quote: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”, is known by most senior business executives. Everyone in my network of contacts would probably agree with this quote. As a result, I’m sure most, if not all would have good business planning structures. The traditional business plan is a beautifully bound but a dusty document that is shared all to little. A document designed to tick a box when raising finance. Rather rarely is it a document that the leadership team shares to all levels of an organisation. As a result, I introduce V2MoM (pronounced V2 MoM) which can be used to quickly communicate the vision and how that vision will be achieved…

What is a V2MOM?

V2MoM is a simple, yet an incredibly effective way to focus your business goals and align your organisation to achieving those goals. V2MoM is an acronym for:

  • Vision
  • ValuesBusiness Planning
  • Methods
  • Obstacles
  • Measurement

I first became aware of the term V2MoM by reading the salesforce founder Marc
Benioff’s book “Behind the Cloud” where he describes the V2MOM as the way he firstly managed to create alignment across the company’s functional areas. In fact, today salesforce has a V2MoM, in addition does each functional area and each team within a functional area.

Why bother?

Interestingly, your V2MoM need only be a one-page plan detailing the business vision and values. The plan unpacks how the team will be aligned to meet the vision and how success is measured. Then blockers and bottlenecks listed and overcome. In my world this is incredibly powerful. The main reason I really like the V2MOM however is that it is unlike most business planning tools or leadership frameworks. The V2MOM delivers unparalleled simplicity for creation, stakeholder understanding and implementation.