Accountability: Impossible without systematic prioritization?
About this webinar
Giving someone an ambitious target does not mean they have the resources to deliver it. David Dunning and Dan Dures examine what accountability means when the funding, people and capacity needed to meet one team's objectives are also claimed by other priorities. David makes a crucial distinction: resources appearing in an approved budget are not necessarily resources the accountable person can actually obtain.
Dan makes the dilemma concrete. In his example, leadership sets a goal of more than 50 million in revenue, but business-as-usual performance leaves a 10 million gap. That gap becomes objectives for different teams, including Operations supporting growth while keeping FTE growth to about 3%. Teams must identify projects that can close their gaps, then secure the resources to deliver them. The target creates demand for work, not the capacity to deliver it.
What you'll hear
- Why accountability needs real empowerment. David connects responsibility with delegated authority and actual access to resources. He describes competing demands from business as usual, ongoing value generation and strategic change.
- How to recognize a broken prioritization process. Webinar participants identify slipping objectives, arguments over resources, unnecessary escalation, confusion over responsibilities and decisions driven by whoever argues loudest.
- How competing projects become comparable. Dan uses Sales, Operations and IT to show how functions pursue different goals while depending on shared IT resources. He demonstrates strategic criteria, AHP and pairwise comparison, project assessments and effort estimates to make the competing claims more explicit.
- Why a fair, visible decision matters when a project loses out. Dan argues that people are more likely to accept an unfavorable choice when they can see how it was reached. His proposed payoff is less time spent negotiating resources, greater confidence in cross-functional commitments and clearer grounds for holding people accountable.
- Why the goal may have to change with the resources. If a team cannot secure what Plan A requires, leadership may need to agree a different plan and renegotiate its objectives. The discussion also examines why a repeatable prioritization process must respond as opportunities, threats, information and available capacity change.
Research in context
A fair process can matter more when the outcome goes against someone. Dan argues that people are more likely to accept an unfavorable project decision when they can see how it was reached. This insight goes back decades. By 1996, an integrative review of 45 independent samples identified a recurring pattern: the fairness of a decision process mattered more to people's reactions when outcomes were unfavorable than when they were favorable. The studies included layoffs, pay freezes and rejected job applications.
For project prioritization, this makes the moment a worthwhile project loses out particularly important. People need to understand not just the decision, but why competing priorities received the resources instead, and what they can now realistically be held accountable for.
How this connects to TransparentChoice
Dan's example shows how projects can be assessed against strategic priorities and estimated effort. But a ranking does not yet show which combination of work fits the funding and capacity available.
TransparentChoice connects structured leadership judgement with funding, shared resource capacity and other portfolio constraints. It can compare feasible combinations of initiatives, show which commitments are included or displaced, and recompute alternatives when priorities, assumptions or constraints change.
The software makes the proposed allocation explicit and testable. Leadership must still commit the resources.
Learn more
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Speakers
David Dunning is a Business Integrated Governance thought leader and founder of the Business Integrated Governance CIC and Deep Team. He also serves as Chairman of CPS, helping organizations improve strategy delivery, governance, and business agility.
Dan Dures is VP of Customer Success at TransparentChoice. With senior leadership experience at Just Eat, dunnhumby, and Home Retail Group, he brings expertise in data, strategy, and customer insight. He helps PMO leaders focus on projects that deliver real strategic value.