If you want to build a ship,
  don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work,
     but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint Exupery

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Visions are dreams

 

A vision is a desired transformative (far) future image. A well-liked vision motivates and unites the target audience.

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A good vision is better than a good plan

 

In distinction to a plan, a good vision can survive failures of execution. If one or several execution attempts fail, a plan should be reviewed or rejected, but a vision can still remain a motivating force and a guiding light.

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Yet visions are extremely risky

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1. Although they help persevere, they may also increase rigidity unnecessarily. A chosen vision excludes other options, which may not be wise in the constantly changing world. Too rigid or short-sighted visions sometimes drove organizations to poor performance or bankruptcies. 
    

2. If a vision is not holistic, it may not bring about the desired impact even if it gets realized. For example, if possible changes in environment, changes in the vision agents' motivation, or future implications of the realization were not considered, the vision agents may find themselves disappointed when they arrive at the desired point.
    

3. If a vision is formulated poorly, it creates a fertile soil for misunderstandings, mistrust, and conflicts. This may lower the chances the vision gets realized.

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A good vision is futures-literate and well-told

 

A vision depicts a point where both external and internal realities resonate: the longed-for change happens, satisfying certain desire of the agents. This moment is often imagined as the beginning of a new era - a long period with transformed conditions.

     For this to happen, many forecasts and ideas about future should come true: ideas about possible paths and costs, about the agent's values dynamics in the short and long term, about the world during and after the journey...

     That said, creating a functional vision can be ludicrously easy, but only if you are lucky.

     The vision designer needs to understand the vision agent, the environment, and probable future scenarios. The vision should be formulated in a clear, precise, and relevant for the audience way. Ideally, it should also be concise and inspiring - it helps save communications costs.

      If interested, you can find a more detailed description of the visioning method in my essay that received a Honorable Mention from the Association of Professional Futurists for an academic essay in 2018: Comparison of normative scenario and vision as methods of futures research.