When the strategy costs more than you actually have
The feasibility test for capital: Can you fund less before learning more, or are governance and appropriation rules forcing you to commit before you're ready?
Most organisations commit capital upfront through annual planning cycles. The business case gets approved, the budget gets locked, the project gets funded.
It looks disciplined.
It feels controlled.
But by year-end, the pattern becomes clear: some initiatives underspend because delivery can't absorb the work when reality hits.
Dependencies shifted, capacity moved, timelines stretched.
Others keep running because they were funded, not because the value case still holds. When those finally stop, capitalised costs hit the income statement as an impairment.
That's not a planning failure. It's a funding model that assumes certainty execution can't deliver.
Execution doesn't deliver certainty. It delivers information. And the two are in constant tension.
The organisations that treat execution as a learning system build investment models that respond to what delivery teaches them.
Funding models get set by the planning cycle and then never revisited, because changing them means reopening a conversation nobody wants. Building the trigger points where investment can follow evidence is part of what Strategic Planning covers.
The challenge: your funding model move as execution learns, so investment follows evidence, not just the original plan?
Here are four patterns I've helped organisations build to close that gap, becoming more adaptable while maintaining governance:
Level 1: Annual Allocation + Rolling Forecasts
Budget stays fixed, forecasting becomes more frequent. You see variance earlier. Better visibility, not yet flexible funding. But an important foundation.
Level 2: Incremental / Tranche Funding with Guardrails
Funding released in stages as risk reduces and evidence builds. Investment starts to follow proof, not plans, and sunk cost exposure shrinks.
Level 3: Persistent Capacity Funding
Long-lived teams funded by outcome area, not project. Demand managed through sequencing, not repeated business cases. I've seen this reduce bureaucracy and accelerate delivery significantly.
Level 4: Dynamic Allocation (Beyond Budgeting principles)
Funding moves more continuously, guided by performance data and devolved decision rights. It works when three things are true: data you trust, authority below the CFO level, and the discipline to stop funding what isn't working when it matters.
Many organisations run a hybrid across these.
Three things matter at every level: guardrails and decision rights, measures you actually trust, and a governance rhythm that can act in-cycle.
Where does your investment governance currently sit, and is it giving execution what it needs to deliver?
This is part of lever 5 (Execution Feasibility) of the Strategy Execution by Design Model. See the full framework →
Not sure which of the seven levers is holding your execution back? Take the Strategy Execution Maturity Model Assessment →
Written by Rebecca Reti, strategy and execution consultant working with boards and executive teams across Australia and New Zealand.
There's more on this in the carousel, with practical detail on each of the four funding patterns. See the carousel on LinkedIn →