When we design a new product or service we often start with the brochure and work backward.  Assuming that the brochure is honest (and ours are), the idea is to start with the idea of what the customer will want and then back into the components.

I remember as a kid watching my father sketch some initial drawings for a house or building.  He'd pull out a roll of tracing paper, yank off a good sized piece and sketch out several ideas.  Those that were liked were developed further.

I've always admired the coaches who are able to give their players a sense of what success will look like.  It was never as simple as "we'll score more points than they do."  That was the goal but success is a clearer picture.  It is the right line-up, practice, sequencing of plays that builds to success.  The picture of what success will look like justifies that work.

I find it a heck of a lot easier to map out a flow chart for a process when I have an idea of the success I am trying to create.

Yet I have also seen and participated in some completely disastrous projects that wandered aimlessly in a direction uncertain to most participants.  A friend of mine, who is an architect, used to complain bitterly about internships at large firms because he spent his day drawing the cross-section of a screw that fit in some part of the giant project the firm was working on (I exaggerate only slightly).

It may sound obvious that a key part of the success of a project or a unit of operation is making sure that the team members have a damn good idea of what success looks like.  It may sound obvious but it is missed constantly by managers and leaders who are amazed when they don't get inspired work out of people who don't have a sense of that big picture.

They need to know what success looks like.