Now more than ever before, your architecture or engineering firm's vision must be clear and enduring to help you plan for success in 2016 and beyond.

Before outlining your strategic plan, you must decide who you are and where you want to be in 5, 10, even 15 years. Many A/E firms operate without such clear vision. It’s as if they just happened to be in business.

How to get started developing your firm’s vision

Writing down your vision starts you on the journey. Make your vision describe the work you’d like to deliver without regard to financial considerations — the essence of what you want your firm to be. Make the vision statement unique, succinct, and tailored to the services your firm provides.

Six Steps to Achieve a Vision for Your Firm

Follow these six steps for developing your vision:

1. Sit in a closed room, and fill a page with your ideas for your firm’s vision. Open the sluice gates; let the ideas rush out, and write them all down. Editing has no place here. Every idea has value.

2. Put away the paper, and take it out in a couple of days, or even a week. Take a fresh look. More ideas will surface. Write them down. Other ideas will coalesce. Keep your larger, long-term goal in mind. The ideas will begin to take shape.

3. From your collected and connected ideas, let a sentence emerge. That sentence will voice the one underlying, unifying theme — what all of your ideas add up to. It will be your vision.

4. Run the sentence by your key people. Together, modify it until you all can stand behind it.

5. Print your vision in a graphically compelling format. Then frame it — and don’t be cheap on the frame.

6. Hang the vision statement where everyone can see it.

Now it's your turn: How do you envision your firm's success in 2016? What are the challenges ahead?

“One size fits all” just isn’t the way it works when it comes to leading architecture or engineering firms.  Small firms like yours face unique challenges that require unique approaches for success … and small firms principals who know how to tough it out among the big boys. PSMJ's complimentary e-book, Successful Strategies For Small Firms, answers these questions and many more by tackling such topics as Strategy, Business Development, Human Resources, and Ownership Transition.