My office (2004)
When I founded a Center of Excellence at my former employer in 1999, I also created a Vision for the COE. In that 2-pager, I said ...
"We do NOT want to just keep in step with what’s invented elsewhere, but to INVENT things HERE for the world to use."
Did that vision translate to reality?
The COE was initially a specialist group in software user interface design. It was launched on January 6, 1999 with a lot of media interest because it included India's first usability testing lab. Then things started to change.
1. We changed the user interface practice from user-centric to business process centric (read about this new approach here)
2. Then I broadened out that approach to the overall software development process itself (read a partial description of my current, advanced version here)
3. Finally, I spun off a business process consulting COE because we pioneered a new way to unify business process and IT.
Perhaps the single most important take-away from this experience: start with a Vision.
Have you created a Vision for a group that you started or took charge of? Have aspects of your vision been realized? If so, how?