Frequently Asked Questions About Coltivar Strategic Problem Framework
20 answers covering everything from basics to advanced usage.
// Basics
What does 'interrelated set of choices' actually mean?
It means the three answers — where you compete, how you compete, and how you win — must reinforce each other rather than stand as independent lists. If you could swap one choice for a different business's choice and it would still make sense, your choices aren't interrelated. True strategy has internal logic where each choice makes the others stronger and harder for competitors to copy.
Is 'strategic planning' the same as strategy?
No. Adding the word 'strategic' to a planning process does not make it a strategy. Strategic planning typically produces a list of what a team will do over a period — which is a plan. Strategy requires answering where to compete, how to compete, and how to win, grounded in your financial reality and a single named constraint.
What is a BHAG and should I have one?
A BHAG is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal — a visionary long-term target popularized by Jim Collins. It can be useful as aspiration, but it becomes dangerous when it replaces financial grounding and Strategic Problem identification. If your BHAG ignores your Sustainable Growth Rate, it's a liability. Build your strategy first, then test whether a BHAG is financially underwritable.
// How To
What financial numbers do I need to diagnose the real constraint?
You need your revenue trend (growing, flat, or declining), profit margin trend, customer churn rate, return on invested capital, and your Sustainable Growth Rate if known. These signals reveal whether your offer generates repeat economic value and where value is leaking. The real constraint surfaces from these numbers — not from the leadership team's perceived priorities.
How do I write a good Strategic Problem statement?
Write a single precise sentence rooted in your financial diagnosis, not aspirations. Good examples: 'eroding margins due to poor offer design,' 'high churn destroying retention economics,' or 'unit economics worsen as we add locations.' Avoid vague statements like 'we need more growth.' Force exactly one constraint — if your team lists multiple 'number one' problems, you haven't done the diagnosis yet.
How do I turn my Strategic Problem into a testable experiment?
Articulate a hypothesis in the form: 'If we do X, we believe it will solve the Strategic Problem by producing Y economic outcome.' Then define the smallest viable experiment to test it rather than betting all your resources. Build in a measurement mechanism and a timeline — for example, 'improve onboarding to reduce churn by a measurable percentage within 90 days.'
How do I decide which initiatives to kill?
Filter every initiative through the Strategic Problem. Keep only the two or three that most directly address the constraint and reinforce your three strategic choices. Everything else gets killed or explicitly deferred — not quietly kept 'just in case.' If an initiative doesn't move your single constraint, it's diluting your force. Explicit deferral maintains focus while preserving good ideas for later.
// Troubleshooting
My team left the offsite with 40 initiatives — what went wrong?
You produced a plan, not a strategy, and fell into initiative sprawl. The fix is to go back and diagnose financial reality to surface the single Strategic Problem, then filter all 40 items through it. Most will fail the test. The excitement of a long list feels like progress, but the more initiatives you have, the less any one gets solved.
What if my team insists there are several equally critical problems?
If everything is the constraint, nothing is. Multiple coexisting 'number one' problems is a sign the financial diagnosis is incomplete. Push deeper: which problem, if solved, unlocks the others? Usually one underlying economic issue — like broken ROIC or churn — drives the symptoms the team perceives as separate. Force a single constraint before proceeding.
My growth target is way above my Sustainable Growth Rate — now what?
Flag the financing gap explicitly. Growth beyond your Sustainable Growth Rate requires external debt or giving up equity — otherwise you'll grow yourself out of business. Either recalibrate the target to the rate you can self-fund, or make a deliberate, financed decision to exceed it with eyes open. Never let a BHAG quietly ignore this math.
We already have a vision statement — do we throw it out?
No, you subordinate it to the strategy rather than discarding it. Build your strategy from the Strategic Problem first, then test whether the vision is financially achievable given your economics and Sustainable Growth Rate. If it is, keep it as aspiration. If the strategy can't underwrite it, the vision is decoration and needs revising — not the other way around.
// Comparisons
How does the Coltivar framework compare to EOS or Scaling Up?
EOS and Scaling Up are operating systems that organize execution — rocks, accountability charts, quarterly priorities — but they don't force identification of your one Strategic Problem or tie choices to financial reality. They can become 'flavor of the day' frameworks adopted and discarded. The Coltivar framework sits upstream: it defines the constraint and strategic choices those systems should be executing against.
How is this different from just doing a SWOT analysis?
A SWOT analysis produces four lists but no decision — it doesn't tell you your single constraint or how to win. It was designed for large-company competitive analysis, not for small or mid-size fragmented businesses. The Coltivar framework instead diagnoses your actual economics, names one Strategic Problem, and makes interrelated choices that create measurable economic value.
Why not just copy what Nike or Apple did?
Because that's survivorship bias. Iconic founders who started with a grand 'why' succeeded, but millions of businesses failed holding identical visions. The survivors also understood their economics and tied strategy to the equation. Copying the inspirational story without the financial discipline is dangerous for the majority of businesses that aren't outliers.
Is this framework only for struggling businesses?
No. While it's powerful for businesses at a revenue plateau or in decline, healthy and growing businesses benefit too. Even a growing business has a single most-limiting constraint, and naming it focuses resources for the next leg of growth. The framework also prevents growth-stage businesses from exceeding their Sustainable Growth Rate and overextending.
// Advanced
Can a business compete on both cost and differentiation at once?
Traditionally these were seen as mutually exclusive, but in the AI era the framework acknowledges a business may pursue both simultaneously — using automation to lower cost structure while differentiating on experience. The key is that your 'how we compete' choice must still be a deliberate, interrelated part of the strategy, not an accidental attempt to be everything to everyone.
How often should I revisit the strategy once it's built?
Treat strategy as a living loop, not an annual reset. Schedule a defined review cadence to run the experiment, measure against your hypothesis, and adjust your choices. A once-a-year offsite that produces a static document is a common pitfall. The Scientific Approach — problem, hypothesis, experiment, measurement, adjustment — runs continuously.
What role does ROIC play as the underlying Strategic Problem?
Return on Invested Capital measures how efficiently your business generates returns from deployed capital. A broken ROIC — where expansion requires more capital than it returns — is a common hidden constraint, especially for multi-location or headcount-heavy businesses. If each new unit costs more than it returns, no vision fixes it. Naming this as the Strategic Problem reframes the entire strategy around achieving positive ROIC before scaling.
How do I sequence mission, vision, and strategy correctly?
Build strategy first, starting from the Strategic Problem and financial diagnosis. Then place mission and vision after, using the strategy to validate whether they're financially achievable given your Sustainable Growth Rate. A mission that can't be underwritten by a viable strategy is decoration. This reverses the common order and protects you from inspirational goals that your economics can't support.
What if my financial data is incomplete or messy?
Start with the signals you can get: directional revenue trend, rough margin trend, and churn. Even approximate numbers often reveal the real constraint more honestly than a brainstorming session. Where data is missing, treat improving financial visibility itself as part of the first experiment. You can't name a credible Strategic Problem on gut feel alone — the numbers are the diagnosis.