Project vision

The Project Vision is a document which is shared by a project manager and business analyst. They work together to outline the problem statement, determine the desired state, describe the criteria of business acceptance of the deliverables and how project success will be measured. The document contains a section with stakeholder analysis which shows all the parties involved along with their responsibilities and needs:


The business analyst adds the high level requirements which are within the scope of the project, and marks each requirement as compulsory or optional. To clearly define the project scope and avoid ambiguity, all out-of-scope requirements are also listed at the end of the section.

Based on the results of the current state analysis (discussed in the previous post), the business analyst describes the current business context, the key business processes and services used to support them. After that the required changes are mapped to the current business context. It can be a good idea to present this mapping as a diagram for easy communication of the proposed changes to the business stakeholders.

Solution vision

Once the Project Vision document is approved, the preparation of the Solution Vision document starts.


First, the business analyst recaps the problem statement from the Project Vision artifact. The solution statement describes the target audience of the solution, what will be satisfied by the solution and what the key benefits will be. The statement of differentiation of the solution from possible alternative options is added as a conclusive point in positioning of the solution.

The document describes stakeholders within the target audience along with their roles using a RACI matrix.

The main part of a Solution Vision is a detailed section devoted to the solution capabilities comprised of both functional and non-functional features, with priorities given by the business stakeholders. The next section presents the business context in its future “to be” state. It’s a good idea to include a a diagram illustrating the key changes and additions to the existing state, as well as a brief narrative to clarify the proposed changes.

Similarly to the Project Vision document, the features that are out of scope are clearly listed in the last section to make sure everyone is on the same page with regards to what will be implemented.

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