Key Planning Documents: Mission Statement

A Mission statement, used as an integral part of the structured planning framework we advocate should contain the following:

• Which organization or department is responsible for the statement
• A description of how it is linked to the Charter and Vision statements.
• Short to medium term objectives that the mission is designed to achieve
• Details of who has been allocated responsibility for achieving the Mission objectives
• A time line describing when the Mission is expected to have been completed
• Details of any Mission review or audit procedures that will have to be followed
• A description of any identified issues or risks that may have an impact on the ability to meet objectives.
• A description of available and allocated resources that will be used to achieve the Mission.

The Mission is one of the three foundation documents on which organization design is based using our framework. The other two, the Charter and Vision statements are planning documents that the mission is derived from or influenced by.

Why a Mission Statement?

Most readers of this information will be familiar with the kind of Mission statement that says something like "we want to be seen as the best widget makers in the world, and at the same time....". That kind of statement is extremely useful in a public relations context, but is not particularly useful for plan formulation purposes. In our view, a Mission statement should be a planning document in its own right that describes, in as much detail as required short to medium term objectives (say over a 2 year period) with details of who has direct responsibility for achieving them. The Mission should be written so that those organization working to the mission objectives can in turn craft their own short to medium term plan. The mission should be drawn from the related long term planning document written as a Vision statement.

Value to the Planning Framework?

In the context of the framework we advocate, the Mission statement is a planning document that provides the means to cascade short to medium term corporate aims and objectives on a top down basis to as low a level as required in the management chain. Bottom up, the Mission provides the means for organization elements and individuals to demonstrate how their plans fit into the overall corporate plan. Applying the structure we propose has the added advantage of making a key planning activity auditable.

The "we make the best widgets" kind of Mission statement has it's place and has some organizational value as a customer and stakeholder facing PR exercise and may perhaps be more usefully derived from the Charter statement in which should be descriptions of the core values the organisation holds dear. In our view, the Mission forms foundation part of an organisations planning infrastructure.