A major miner's capital allocation had become highly political. With 248 projects competing for A$14 million in study funding, decisions reflected organisational power rather than strategic value. Well-connected project sponsors secured funding through lobbying while high-value opportunities from smaller teams were overlooked. The approval process took months, by which time market conditions had often shifted.
The inefficiency was obvious: similar projects repeated the same studies, scarce technical resources were hoarded rather than shared, and decisions lacked transparency. The general manager knew this dysfunction was destroying value but previous attempts at systematic allocation had been gamed or ignored.

We designed a dynamic prioritisation system that brought objectivity to capital allocation. The framework scored projects across multiple dimensions: financial returns, strategic alignment, technical risk, and execution readiness. But static scoring wasn't enough. We made it interactive.
Project teams could model scenarios in real-time, seeing how changes affected their ranking. If they improved ore grade assumptions, they could see if it moved them above the funding line. This transparency changed behaviour from gaming the system to improving projects.
We established monthly "capital markets" where projects pitched for funding in open forums. Unsuccessful projects received specific feedback on improvements needed. Importantly, we created separate funding pools for different project types, ensuring portfolio balance between major developments and smaller innovations.

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Decision timelines compressed from months to weeks. The transparent process eliminated political lobbying as teams focused on improving fundamentals. Analysis showed the optimised portfolio delivered 23% higher returns than traditional allocation would have achieved. Even unsuccessful projects acknowledged the fairness, with teams using feedback to strengthen future proposals. The framework's success led to enterprise-wide adoption, with other commodities adapting it for their contexts. The system proved that transparency and competition could coexist with collaboration.