At his Substack, Austin Kleon suggests an alternative to having a creative vision:

And this all sounds very inspiring — it really does pump you up! — but for much of my life, [having a vision] would have been almost useless advice, because I didn’t really see any of my career coming. There was no clear path back then to where I am now.

There was a bit of interesting discussion at Hacker News, which makes me think that vision and practice are at two extremes of a creative oscillation (or creative tension, in Austin’s words). 

From a project perspective, a vision is helpful so long as it helps anchor the project and serve as scaffolding to channel chaotic creative energy through. It also helps guide the practice, keeping it from getting too random and incoherent, and guiding works to completion.

A vision itself could probably use a container too, though. In The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp writes of what she calls the spine: 

Spine, to put it bluntly, begins with your first strong idea. You were scratching to come up with an idea, you found one, and through the next stages of creative thinking you nurtured it into the spine of your creation. The idea is the toehold that gets you started. The spine is the statement you make to yourself outlining your intentions for the work. You intend to tell this story. You intend to explore this theme. You intend to employ this structure. The audience may infer it or not. But if you stick to your spine, the piece will work.

She continues with an example, her Bacchae-inspired dance, Surfer at the River Styx:

I asked myself, What is the essence of The Bacchae? My answer was hubris—that most compelling of tragic flaws. The king, Pentheus, rejects the divinity of Dionysus, who takes vengeance by driving mad his followers, the Bacchae (women worshippers of Bacchus, another name for Dionysus), who then tear Pentheus to pieces. Pentheus’s hubris, by itself, is not much of a story (although it does lead to his death), but it was enough of an idea to get me started. As I began casting the piece and creating steps for the dancers, this flimsy tendon of an idea gradually turned into the solid spine of a narrative arc: Dionysus poses as a humble man, and from this stance he regains his status as a deity. Humility conquers hubris, and a god is resurrected. That would be the spine of the piece.

There are plenty more examples; think about Virgil Abloh’s design language, or Paul Thomas Anderson reading Oil! to unblock There Will Be Blood.

See also setting a mission, and action boards.