Define Your Mission, Vision, and Values

MVV Questionnaire Example

Here is a list of questions we used at a recent Snowball retreat to discuss our own Mission, Vision, and Values. This questionnaire is designed to help a company find its own MVV.

What is your motivation for being a founder/founding member of [COMPANY NAME]? Why are you here, specifically?

If you do have a written set of personal values, list them below. Get specific - everyone values “integrity” but add a line explaining what that means to you. Think a word or phrase with a voice-y tagline - an example is “360 Learning: read books, listen to others to learn with empathy, study myself”.

What are you hoping to build with [COMPANY NAME]? What is [COMPANY NAME]’s UVP in your life, and in the industry?

Write 5-10 different people that you respect and admire, ideally people in your life, but feel free to add 1-2 historical figures that you are familiar with. Next to each of their names, write what qualities you prize in them and which traits reflect her/his basic goodness (avoid physical or material qualities about them). Are there any attributes that load/repeat/cluster? Are there some attributes you hold higher than others? Prioritize these traits from most valued to least.

Do this same activity above with companies, institutions, and organizations. Feel free to think outside of the box - for instance the International Criminal Court is on my list for its ability to manage and coordinate hundreds of different cultures and agendas and reach procedural and missional alignment. Keep your personal standards for integrity separate from your institutional standards for integrity.

Where there any divergences? What would be your best guess as to why? Are there some you exhibit personally, and others professionally? Any surprises? Explain.

Take your first swing at the values you'd like this organization to embody (no more then 7, and keep it to a phrase and a tagline)

What attributes are important to you in the work environment and culture you build with your organization?

Organize the following stakeholders in order of how you ideally prioritize them (think, “who gets what degree of my time and attention”): employee, C level employee, investor, customer, and influential outsider.

Vivid Snippets: The year is 2030 and Nautilus, The Paris Review, or The New Yorker is writing a piece about Roof Master. Write a few paragraphs of this article, explaining what we’ve created, and why it’s so innovative and special.

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