Strategic Planning Priorities — Getting Started

Greg Collins prepared remarks for the PSDA CEO Summit on strategic planning, business development, and priority setting. To understand the planning challenges facing growth company executives, he interviewed multiple CEOs. The feedback was consistent and striking: the core need is a framework for building a case for action — the ability to choose among options and communicate why those choices matter.

The challenge for most executive teams is not lack of ideas. It is lack of a framework for choosing among them. Planning processes produce options without creating clarity on which matter most. The result is strategic plans that try to do everything, that are satisfying to present but difficult to execute.

The Core Problem: Too Many Options, No Prioritization

Strategic planning meetings generate dozens of potential initiatives. We could enter this market. We could develop that product. We could restructure this function. We could hire this talent. Every option feels like an opportunity. Every option could contribute to growth. But not every option can get executive focus. Not every option is worth the investment.

The planning process that fails is the one that generates options but does not prioritize them. The planning process that works creates a framework for brutal choices about what matters most and what gets deferred.

The Assess-Address-Aspire framework provides exactly that forcing function. It is a simple three-stage approach that forces companies to confront reality before setting direction, to solve constraints before pursuing aspirations.

Stage 1: Assess — Where Are We, Honestly?

The situation assessment forces the team to agree on the current competitive position, the key challenges, and the most critical constraints. This is the stage most planning processes rush through in favor of goal-setting. That is a mistake. A crisp assessment is the foundation for everything that follows.

Assessment questions: What is our current market position? What are the key threats? What are our critical capabilities? Where are we constrained — by resources, by market position, by capability, by financial health? What is actually limiting our growth right now?

The assessment is not comprehensive. It focuses on what is most important right now, not everything we know. The output is agreement: the team agrees on the competitive moment and what is limiting the business.

Stage 2: Address — What Must We Solve?

This is the stage most planning processes skip entirely. They go from assessment to aspiration. Address is different. It asks: What constraints must we resolve to create the conditions for growth?

Not what we want to do. What we must resolve. If our assessment says we are constrained by sales capability, the address stage is about solving that constraint — hiring, training, restructuring, or changing the sales model. If we are constrained by product capability, address is about what must change in the product. If we are constrained by financial capacity, address is about how we create that capacity.

The Address stage prevents the common planning error: pursuing growth opportunities while constrained by unresolved structural problems. You cannot scale sales while the sales organization is broken. You cannot pursue new markets while the existing product is under-invested. Address forces you to identify and commit to solving the critical constraints first.

Stage 3: Aspire — Where Are We Going?

Only after Assess and Address does the question of aspiration make sense. Where are we going, and what will it look like when we get there? What is the vision for where this company is headed?

Aspiration set after Assessment and Address is realistic. It is aspirational but grounded in the reality of the current situation and the constraints you have committed to solving. It provides the north star for the organization.

Aspiration set before Assessment and Address is fantasy. The company builds a plan around the aspiration rather than around reality. When execution begins and reality collides with aspiration, the plan fails.

Why This Sequence Matters

The Assess-Address-Aspire sequence forces decisions that companies avoid in traditional planning. If the assessment says the company is constrained by sales capability, the Address stage requires commitment to fixing that. That commitment might mean dividing executive attention between solving the constraint and pursuing growth. It requires choices — what gets done, what gets deferred, what gets outsourced or resourced differently.

Companies that make these choices explicitly build strategies that are executable. Companies that avoid the hard choices in Address build strategies that look good in presentations but fail in execution because the underlying constraints were never solved.

From Framework to Action

The Assess-Address-Aspire framework produces a strategic plan with three distinct components:

• Current state description — What the assessment reveals about market position, capabilities, and constraints
• Specific Address initiatives — What constraints must be solved, by whom, with what timeline and resources
• Multi-year aspiration and strategy — Where the company is headed and how it will get there, grounded in the belief that key constraints have been solved

Each component requires decisions. Each component requires trade-offs. The framework forces those decisions to be made explicitly rather than implicitly through organizational drift.

Taking Bold Steps in Uncertainty

The message of the 2011 PSDA summit was clear: uncertainty is not an excuse for inaction. Companies need clarity on the current moment (Assess), on what must change (Address), and on where they are headed (Aspire). That clarity enables bold action even though the future is uncertain.

Companies that use the Assess-Address-Aspire framework build strategic plans that are realistic, executable, and compelling. They know what they are solving for. They know what gets deferred. They know why the choices matter. And when execution begins and reality deviates from plan, they are prepared to flex because the underlying logic is clear.