01 / Plan · Planning frame
Planning System Improvement
A structured review of your capital planning process: how strategy, prioritisation and constraints produce the portfolio you fund.
The problem
More projects than the plan can hold
Most capital-intensive organisations have more worthwhile projects than money and people to deliver them. The capital planning process exists to resolve that tension. In practice it often doesn't.
Portfolio planning becomes an annual negotiation rather than a genuine set of choices. Project prioritisation rewards the strongest advocate rather than the strongest case. Constraints are treated as targets to negotiate rather than limits to plan within.
The result is an overcommitted portfolio. More projects are approved than the organisation can deliver, every schedule assumes nothing goes wrong, and the same funding and people are promised to several projects at once. Delivery then disappoints, and the planning cycle starts again with less trust than before.
Who it's for
Owners of the capital plan
This review is for the executives who own the capital plan: chief financial officers, heads of strategy and portfolio leaders in mining, energy, infrastructure and government organisations.
The common signals: the portfolio grows every year but delivery doesn't, funding decisions land late, priorities change mid-year, and delivery teams quietly maintain their own version of the plan.
What we do
What we assess
We assess the planning system behind your portfolio, from strategic direction to the funded plan.
Leadership and strategy
whether the leadership team is aligned on direction, and whether strategy is specific enough to guide investment choices.
Demand and prioritisation
how investment demand is gathered, tested and ranked, and whether project prioritisation reflects value and risk rather than advocacy.
Constraints and sequencing
whether funding and delivery capacity genuinely constrain the plan, and whether the portfolio is sequenced against what the organisation can deliver.
The planning rhythm
whether the cycle connects strategy to quarterly delivery, or restarts from scratch every year.
What you get
A clear picture and a path
A clear picture of where planning is working and where it produces a portfolio that can't hold under scrutiny, with prioritised recommendations.
Where clients want to go further, we work alongside their teams to implement the changes and stay until the new rhythm holds.
Related work
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Aviation
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Facing this problem?
A short, confidential conversation is the fastest way to find out if we can help.