Vision informs mission. Mission provides context for strategy. Strategy constrains roadmaps. Roadmaps provide measuring guides for plans. Plans line up the day to day work.
Vision is why you do what you do. It is your North Star, the reason your company or your team exists. It should rarely, if ever, vary. Yet it should be revisited every 5 years, at a minimum.
Mission is what you intend to achieve. It outlines what is in your scope, and out of your scope. Revisit it at least every 2 years.
Strategy is how you will achieve your mission, and how what you do will move you toward your vision. It brings market data and analysis to the party. Revisit it at least once a year.
Roadmaps show when milestones of the strategy should be achieved. They are guides for expectations. Stakeholders typically begin consuming information at this level. Roadmaps are not plans, they are measuring devices for strategic progress. They must be adjusted quarterly, and will often change.
Plans (sprint plans, projects, task lists) show who is assigned to deliver small decomposed pieces of the overall work. They line up to roadmaps and strategy, but they are what is real. Adjust them at least each sprint.
There are other structures, feedback loops, inflection points, and ways to measure and adjust these components, but they are all commonly spoken of together as a "long term plan" without laying hyper-technical baggage on the word plan.
Because the definitions and leveling are arbitrary and cultural within a given firm or context. Notice how "plan" is both at the bottom level, and also the highest level by being all encompassing if you call it "long term".
That said, regardless of labels, this leveled model is reasonable and better than a model that isn't cascaded.
An alternative definition of 'strategy' is that it integrates ends, ways and means. Ends = what you want to achieve. Means = resources, constraints, etc. Ways = processes, techniques, etc.
Given an agreed strategy, you can then develop a plan, which is the specific sequence of steps to achieve the ends.
Vision is why you do what you do. It is your North Star, the reason your company or your team exists. It should rarely, if ever, vary. Yet it should be revisited every 5 years, at a minimum.
Mission is what you intend to achieve. It outlines what is in your scope, and out of your scope. Revisit it at least every 2 years.
Strategy is how you will achieve your mission, and how what you do will move you toward your vision. It brings market data and analysis to the party. Revisit it at least once a year.
Roadmaps show when milestones of the strategy should be achieved. They are guides for expectations. Stakeholders typically begin consuming information at this level. Roadmaps are not plans, they are measuring devices for strategic progress. They must be adjusted quarterly, and will often change.
Plans (sprint plans, projects, task lists) show who is assigned to deliver small decomposed pieces of the overall work. They line up to roadmaps and strategy, but they are what is real. Adjust them at least each sprint.
There are other structures, feedback loops, inflection points, and ways to measure and adjust these components, but they are all commonly spoken of together as a "long term plan" without laying hyper-technical baggage on the word plan.
I thought this was product management 101.