Your organisation has dozens of strategic initiatives. Most people cannot name more than five. Several are effectively the same project running under different names. A number have not had a governance meeting in months. Many will be quietly dropped at the next reorganisation.
But they are all "strategic", so they continue consuming budget and attention until they eventually fade away.
The Strategic Label Inflation
"Strategic" has become a word that shields projects from scrutiny. Label something strategic and it becomes difficult to challenge, regardless of whether it is actually connected to strategy or delivering meaningful outcomes.
This creates initiative inflation. Every function wants its projects classified as strategic to secure resources and executive attention. Once everything is strategic, nothing is.
Real strategy requires clear trade-offs. If you cannot articulate what the organisation is choosing not to do in order to prioritise this initiative, it is a project with a more impressive label.
Finance's role is to push back on this honestly. What company objective does this support? What is the expected outcome? What alternatives were considered? What happens if this does not proceed?
Vague answers mean it is not genuinely strategic. It may still be worthwhile. But name it accurately: an improvement project, a competitive response, a good idea. Reserve "strategic" for initiatives that genuinely advance differentiated positioning.
Too Many, Too Rarely Stopped
Organisations launch initiatives with enthusiasm and abandon them with reluctance. The asymmetry accumulates over time.
Incoming leadership adds new initiatives. Outgoing priorities are rarely formally closed. The result is an organisation trying to execute too many things simultaneously, with none receiving the focus needed to succeed.
The fix is active portfolio management. Treat the initiative portfolio the way you would treat an investment portfolio with finite capacity, people, money, attention, and a regular review of what is delivering versus what should be stopped.
Kill things deliberately. Make it someone's specific responsibility to identify which initiatives should be wound down. Agree clear exit criteria in advance. If we have not reached this milestone by this date, we stop.
Most organisations are better at starting things than stopping them. Inverting that tendency significantly improves strategic execution.
Ownership vs. Sponsorship
Strategic initiatives typically have sponsors, senior leaders who endorse them, but lack genuine owners, i.e., people whose accountability is explicitly tied to delivery.
The sponsor attends the launch and then returns to their day job. The initiative then drifts.
Real ownership means one named individual whose objectives are directly connected to this outcome, who has the authority to make decisions and access resources, and who reports progress regularly to a defined audience.
Neither a committee nor a cross-functional working group without a single accountable leader. One person, one outcome, clear accountability.
Finance should decline to fund initiatives that cannot identify a clear owner. Collective ownership is not ownership. Team recognition must be differentiated from project ownership.
Metric Theatre
Every strategic initiative tends to have goals that sound meaningful such as improve customer satisfaction, drive operational efficiency, accelerate innovation. These metrics are often vague enough that success can be claimed regardless of actual outcomes.
Push for specificity. What exactly are we measuring? What is the current baseline? What is the target? By what date? How will it be measured?
"Improve customer engagement" could mean almost anything. "Increase monthly active users from 100,000 to 150,000 within twelve months, measured via product analytics" is testable and accountable.
If the team cannot define specific, measurable outcomes before work begins, they are not ready to execute. Make it a condition of funding approval.