Testable vision: what it is and what it means

A testable vision is a concrete and dated description of the company's future state, specific enough to guide hiring, investment and exit decisions. It is not an inspirational phrase hanging in the meeting room: it is a formulation that lets you assess whether each new proposal moves toward or away from the goal. The quality criterion is the negation test: a vision is useful when it allows you to say no to an apparently attractive opportunity. A formulation such as "by 2027, serve the 200 leading professional firms in Northern Italy with a portfolio of three high-margin products" is a verifiable hypothesis; "become the point of reference for our market" rules out nothing.

Distinctive: concrete and dated
Distinctive: negation test
Essential: company's future state
Essential: hiring, investment and exit decisions
Essential: verifiable hypothesis
Constant: allows you to say no
Constant: is not an inspirational phrase

Glossary

Testable vision

A concrete and dated description of the company's future state, specific enough to guide hiring, investment and exit decisions.