Lost the Plot on Planning

This post was originally featured in our October 8th, 2025 newsletter here: INBOX INSIGHTS, October 8, 2025: Lost the Plot on Planning, AI For Data Analysis, Part 1

We’ve Lost the Plot on Planning- Part 1

I’ve been in a lot of planning meetings lately. And I mean a lot.

Here’s what I’m noticing: everyone’s talking about AI. How to use AI for planning. How AI will revolutionize their processes. How they need an AI strategy.

I get it. AI is powerful. It’s transformative. But somewhere between “We need to leverage AI” and “What’s our AI roadmap?” we’ve completely forgotten to ask the most basic question:

What problem are we actually trying to solve for our customers?

The Planning Problem We’ve Created

Planning has become an internal exercise. We sit in conference rooms (or Zoom calls) and talk about:

• Operational efficiencies
• ROI metrics
• Resource optimization
• Process improvements
• Technology adoption

These things matter. Of course they do.

But when was the last time you heard someone lead a planning session with: “What does our customer actually need, and how do we make their lives easier?”

Where We Went Wrong

The shift happened gradually. Planning became about:

What we want to achieve instead of what our customers need to accomplish.

How we can work smarter instead of how we can serve better.

What technology should we use instead of what problems we should solve.

And AI? It’s just amplified this problem. Now we’re adding another layer of internal focus: “How do we use AI in our planning?”

Why This Matters Right Now

Here’s the thing: when planning becomes disconnected from the end user, a few things happen:

1. You build things nobody wants. You’ve optimized processes that don’t actually address customer pain points.
2. Your team loses direction. Without a clear customer-focused purpose, every priority feels equally important (which means nothing is actually a priority).
3. You waste resources. All that efficiency you’re planning for? It doesn’t matter if you’re efficiently building the wrong thing.
4. You miss opportunities. While you’re focused inward, your customer is telling you exactly what they need—and you’re not listening.

The Real Cost of Complicated Planning

I see organizations with 47-slide strategy decks. Detailed roadmaps that require a decoder ring. Planning frameworks so complex that no one can remember them, let alone use them.

And at the end of all that planning? Teams still don’t know what to do on Monday morning.

Meanwhile, the customer is still struggling with the same problem they had six months ago.

Getting Back to Basics

This isn’t about throwing out AI. It’s not about ignoring efficiency or ROI.

It’s about remembering the point of all this planning in the first place: to serve your customers better.

Everything else—the AI, the optimization, the efficiencies—those are tools to achieve that goal. Not the goal itself.

In Part 2, I’ll walk through how to refocus your planning using Trust Insights’ 5P Framework. It’s straightforward; it keeps the customer at the center, and it actually helps your team know what to do next.

Because here’s the truth: simple planning that focuses on your customer will always outperform complicated planning that focuses on your internal operations.

Are you overcomplicating your strategic planning? Reply to this email or join our free Slack group, Analytics for Marketers.

– Katie Robbert, CEO

Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.