Operationalising strategy delivery – the priority perspective

Executive summary

Strategy development and delivery is a mature discipline (see IASP Body of Knowledge v3.0), yet many organisations still fail to realise their strategic intent. The gap isn’t theory – it’s execution: human behaviour, cross-functional complexity and resource allocation routinely break the chain from purpose → vision → delegated objectives.

For example, at an APM PMO Conference at which the Business Integrated Governance (BIG) CIC was presenting, when asked “who was responsible for supporting strategy delivery on their organisations” – none of the c. 100 delegates knew who that was.

The answer is to operationalise strategy delivery: combine an integrated governance operating model (Business Integrated Governance, or BIG) with a clear information backbone, work management, and prioritisation capability (for example, the TransparentChoice solution) so leadership time, funds and resources are deployed where they deliver the most value.

The Challenge: Why Good Strategy Fails – Prioritisation

On paper, strategy looks straightforward: identify what drives the organisation – opportunities, risks, imperatives, and goals – then define a vision, set objectives, and delegate delivery.

In practice, that logic rarely holds. Across boardrooms, professional networks, and journals alike, the same pattern emerges: strategies fail not because they’re poorly conceived, but because execution breaks down.

Common obstacles appear everywhere:

• The way people work together – behaviour, politics, and leadership conflict.
• Complex handoffs and cross-functional dependencies.
• Weak accountability.
• Constant competition between business-as-usual, asset or product work, and change programmes.
• Fragmented data, measures, and reporting.
• Unclear priorities

Research and lived experience tell a consistent story. The breakdowns appear across the strategic process – in clarity, communication, cascading, accountability, control, agility, and integration. Poor prioritisation is a common theme.

Prioritisation and Enablement: The Weak Link

At a more recent APM Governance Interest Network event, run with BIG CIC, participants were asked: “Are objectives prioritised in your organisation?”

Very few said yes. Most described unclear rules, short-term reactivity, political interference, and ad-hoc decision-making.

Portfolio management helps govern change investments, but most of an organisation’s effort sits elsewhere – in everyday operations and asset or product work. Strategic outcomes depend on aligning all three domains simultaneously:

1. Business-as-usual activity,
2. Value creation through products and assets, and
3. Change and investment portfolios.

That means prioritisation must be treated as an enterprise decision, not just a project-portfolio exercise.

BIG’s Approach: Integrate, Don’t Replace

The BIG Body of Knowledge (BoK) brings together insights from strategy, governance, finance, change, and operations. It doesn’t replace domain expertise; it connects it – offering a shared language and a practical ecosystem that links purpose, vision, strategy, and delivery across all domains of work.

The BoK defines:

• Core concepts for integration,
• Principles for stakeholder engagement,
• Components for building an integrated ecosystem,
• A lifecycle for operation, and
• Detailed references for people, processes, and tools.

It explains what must be connected, not which software to use. In practice, three elements enable it to function:

1. A Strategy Information Model – a data backbone linking purpose, strategy, objectives, supporting documentation, and measures of progress.
2. Work Management Solutions – to assign, track, and manage the actual tasks that deliver objectives.
3. Prioritisation Tools – to translate objective value into real funding, leadership time, and resource allocation.

Without the third, priorities look convincing on paper but dissolve in practice as effort drifts away from strategic intent.

How Prioritisation and Delivery Work Together

The BIG BoK offers an outline strateic process. The first part is a simplistic reflection of the corporate level.

The second part reclects that strategy needs to be implemented and delivered:

(See more of the Key Concepts in BIG here)

A practical sequence illustrates how this integration plays out:

1. The board, guided by the CEO, sets organisational purpose and identifies internal and external drivers.
2. Strategy and objectives are developed and scored consistently so that unlike goals can still be compared.
3. Prioritisation software (such as TransparentChoice) ranks top-level objectives and informs broad allocations of funding and leadership attention.
4. As objectives cascade, teams refine them, test feasibility, and feed back cost, value, and risk insights – prompting adjustments.
5. Each business unit translates its part into actionable workloads across BAU, product, and change. These are prioritised locally within real capacity constraints.
6. Aggregation and review across domains reveal misalignments. Resources can then be shifted to maximise enterprise value.

Innovation must also stay in the loop: bottom-up ideas should be scored alongside planned work so the organisation balances strategic response, operational performance, and emergent opportunity.

Cadence, Governance, and the Cost of “One-Offs”

Many organisations still treat prioritisation as an annual event – largely because the process of consolidation is so labour-intensive. That rigidity undermines agility.

Faster cycles are entirely possible if three conditions exist:

• Clear governance and accountability.
• An integrated information model that reduces manual effort.
• Business support to run the process efficiently.

BIG’s integrated governance model defines these mechanics – who decides, on what data, and how control is maintained – enabling quarterly or even monthly reprioritisation without unsustainable overhead.

Closing the Strategy–Delivery Gap

Our proposition is: To make strategy work in practice, organisations should:

• Build an integrated governance operating model (BIG) that links purpose to delivery.
• Create a Strategy Information Model as a single source of truth for objectives and measures.
• Use work management systems to coordinate delivery across BAU, product, and change.
• Adopt prioritisation tooling so that value, not habit, drives where leadership time and funding go.
• Align cadence and governance so reprioritisation becomes part of normal management, not an exceptional event.

Call to action

The message is simple: integration turns strategy from aspiration into action. Think BIG – and make Transparent Choices.

Find out more and connect with other professionals at Business Integrated Governance Conference

More about TransparentChoice:

PLEASE NOTE: While the BIG CIC is firmly TECHNOLOGY AGNOSTIC, where vendors help us, we will point out their solutions where they support Business Integrated Governance.

TransparentChoice choice is an Original Sponsor for the BIG CIC and helped us promote the concept.

“TransparentChoice solution is an AHP decision-support platform for companies looking to revolutionise how they manage their portfolio of projects. Project prioritization is the foundation for portfolio management. Good prioritization lets you focus on delivering strategic impact, fix the “too many projects” problem and more effectively plan your resources.”