Articles and Tools: Formulating Your Mission

Your mission ideally should sum up what your organization does, and the basic way in which you want to do it. In George L. Morrisey's book, A Guide To Tactical Planning,* he outlines some questions that may prove very useful when formulating your mission.

1. What business is the total organization in?  Why does it exist?

2. What business is my unit in?

3. Why does my unit exist (what is our basic purpose)?

4. Who are my unit’s principal customers/clients/users?  Are we primarily a production or support operation?

5. What are my unit’s principal products/services/functions?

6. How do these products/services/functions contribute to the total organization’s mission?

7. What is unique or distinctive about my unit’s work compared to that of other units in the organization?

8. How is my unit’s work different from what it was three to five years ago?

9. What is likely to be different about my unit’s work three to five years in the future?

10. What should be my unit’s economic commitment to the total organization?

11. What philosophical issues, values, and priorities are important to my units future (related to organization and/or department image, customers, employees, safety, environment, innovation/risk taking, administrative practices, and so on)?

12. What special considerations do we have (if not addressed above) in regard to:

• Upper management?
• Customers/clients/users?
• Employees?
• Suppliers?
• Peer organizations?
• General public?
• Others (specify)?

It may also be helpful to browse Web sites of companies you admire and model their missions.

*Source: Morrisey on Planning: A Guide To Tactical Planning copyright 1996 George L. Morrisey and Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers  Click here to purchase this recommended resource