A Cross-Sector Practitioner Framework for
Connecting Strategy, Resources and Delivery
FEATURED PAPER
By Sudhir Taneja
Swansea, United Kingdom
Abstract
Organisations invest a significant amount of focus in planning. Annual plans are developed, quarterly assessments are conducted, and performance packs are delivered on time and often to a high standard. Yet, strategic priorities, resource decisions, and day-to-day delivery regularly push in opposite ways, even within the same organisation and month. The planning activity is real. What it is supposed to generate, alignment, is frequently absent.
The starting point of this study is that the gap is not a failure of planning technique, and it cannot be closed by planning harder or purchasing better software. This is a governance issue. Organisations plan without the ability to translate planning data into coordinated decisions about what is funded, delivered, stopped, and learned from. Drawing on delivery experience in banking, e-commerce, and publicly funded research, and building on two previous papers on governance construction and governance failure, this paper defines Planning Governance Capability (PGC) as an organisation’s repeatable ability to translate changing strategic priorities into governed choices about resources, delivery, benefits, and adaptation.
PGC is presented as six interdependent capabilities: Strategic Direction, Prioritisation, Resource Alignment, Delivery Governance, Benefits Realisation, and Governance Learning. Each capability is defined by a governing question, a common failure pattern, and a requirement for effective practice. The study concludes with a three-part practitioner argument: governance must first be constructed, then protected from anticipated failure, and finally maintained as situations change. It also specifies the framework’s boundaries and the measurement question that the following paper in this series must address. Higher education research program management is the primary application environment, with cross-sector examples demonstrating that the pattern is structural rather than sector-specific.
Keywords: Planning governance, governance capability, dynamic capability, resource alignment, delivery governance, benefits realisation, organisational learning, research programme management, higher education administration, portfolio governance
- Introduction: Planning Happens, but Alignment Does Not
A quarterly review meeting rarely appears to be a failure while it is in progress. The PowerPoint deck is current, the budget has been reconciled with the forecast, and milestones are colour-coded so that red items appear at the top of the list rather than on page fourteen. Everyone in the room can explain what was planned for the quarter and what actually occurred. The meeting therefore concludes almost as routinely as it began: with a plan that no longer reflects the realities under which the organisation operates, and no apparent strategy of narrowing that gap before the next quarter repeats itself.
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How to cite this paper: Taneja, S. (2026). Planning Is Not an Annual Exercise: A Cross-Sector Practitioner Framework for Connecting Strategy, Resources and Delivery; PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue IX, September. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Pmwj168-Sep2026-Taneja-Planning-Is-Not-an-Annual-Exercise.pdf
About the Author
Sudhir Taneja
Swansea, UK
Sudhir Taneja is a programme and project manager specialising in governance design, operational visibility, and delivery architecture across complex multi-partner environments. His work spans funded research governance, financial services, and cross-sector reporting systems in the United Kingdom and India. He holds an MBA with Distinction from Swansea University and is a member of the Association for Project Management. He is based in Swansea, UK. He can be contacted at sudhirstaneja@gmail.com; Website: sudhirtaneja.com
ORCID: 0009-0003-2977-8780
