After the team has created the first draft of its Vision Document, it's time to start communicating the vision, obtaining buy off from upper management, incorporating other people's expertise, and getting everyone excited about delivering on the vision's promises. This process involves the following steps:
CAUTION
Communication is a two-way street. The team should continually incorporate stakeholders' feedback into the vision. Team members should not only tell stakeholders what the product will do, but should continually validate that the product meets the stakeholders' needs.
During validation and selling of the vision, the team creates revised drafts of the vision document. When the team believes it is time to move on to the planning process, the product vision is agreed upon by the team and stakeholders, and the Vision Approved Milestone is reached. This milestone is the identification of a baseline vision that will be used throughout this release of the product. Although the baseline vision may undergo slight changes during the remaining project phases, they nevertheless constitute a foundation for this product release.
At this stage of the envisioning process, it's important to remember that the vision does not belong to any one person. To deliver the vision, the team must own it, not a single individual. The whole team must nurture the product vision to life, so the whole team must clearly understand and be committed to it.