PLATEAU
STRATEGY
Program Governance
WHY WE EXIST
Nobody In The Room Is Paid To Ask Why.
Vendors sell it. Champions defend it. Delivery teams deliver it.
Capital flows to the initiatives that argue best, not the ones that fit the strategy. Returns drift from projections quietly. Technology spend grows with no enterprise value to show for it.
This is not a controls failure. It is a structural failure.
We take the one seat nobody else will: the person in the room paid to ask whether it should exist.
Why This Keeps Happening:
ROI Theater. The system that funds the best argument, not the best outcome. Vendors exploit it. Green dashboards hide it. CFOs inherit it. P² ends it.
Five Questions The Board Is Already Asking.
If any answer is "I'm not sure," that's where to start.
1.
When a capital request lands on your desk, does the best business case win?
2.
When an initiative misses its projections, does capital move — or do explanations?
3.
Right now, how much capital is committed to initiatives that will not move the enterprise forward — and what is that costing you in missed opportunities?
4.
Does your capital follow your strategy — or does it follow the strongest business case regardless of strategic fit?
5.
When a major technology or transformation investment is proposed, who in the room has no career interest in the answer — and the firsthand experience to know where the risk is actually hiding?
THE EVIDENCE
30%
70%
48%
About 30% of transformations succeed, a rate unchanged after years of research. McKinsey, "Losing from day one," 2021
70% of digital transformations fall short of their objectives. BCG, "Flipping the Odds of Digital Transformation Success," 2020 (895 transformations)
Only 48% of digital initiatives meet or exceed their business outcome targets. Gartner CIO Survey, Oct 2024
Twenty Years Of Better Tools. The Numbers Haven't Moved.
How we measure
Traditional ROI
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Project payback period
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Point-in-time calculation
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Technical debt ignored
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Backward-looking
Capital Balance Sheet™
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Enterprise value creation
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Ongoing portfolio management
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Technical debt as liability
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Forward and strategic
ROI tells you whether something pays back.
It can't tell you whether it deserves the capital, or whether you're still building what the board approved.
The Capital Balance Sheet™ tracks both.
ROI Is The Wrong Instrument.
WHAT INTERVENTION MEANS
P² Deploys At Three Moments. Miss Any One And The Capital Is Already At Risk.
Before You Commit
When Something Feels Off
When You're Going Live With Less Than You Funded
We test the case before you fund it.
The vendor has modeled this deal. You haven't.
Before you sign, you want someone in the room with no interest in the outcome — and the pattern recognition to know what the proposal isn't saying.
2–4 weeks · Fixed scope
The PMO says green. Your instinct says otherwise. Trust your instinct.
You're 12 months into a transformation and the numbers don't add up. You need a clear-eyed view of current state, a realistic path forward, and a stay/pivot/exit recommendation with evidence.
2–3 weeks · Confidential
What got cut to reach go-live didn't disappear. It became the business case you'll fund twice.
You need an honest accounting of what you have, what it's worth, and a Phase 2 framework that doesn't repeat Phase 1.
4–6 weeks · Fixed scope
Every engagement starts with a bounded diagnostic: fixed scope, 2–6 weeks, and a straight answer. If the answer is recover, we stay and own it until it holds.
Track whether capital still points at the return that justified it.
Download Our Capital Balance Sheet Framework
The person who answers
is the person accountable.
No rotating junior teams. No hand-offs after the sale.
Allan Salek
Strategy & Capital · Principal
Four continents. Multiple capital cycles. Allan has led global transformations as both COO and strategy practice leader — which means he has been on every side of the table: the capital decision, the vendor pitch, and the operational reality that follows. He knows where the ROI disappears, where capital drift starts, and what the plan isn't saying. No interest in the outcome except the right one. That's what P² was built on.
Rich Carlson
Technology Architecture · Data Systems
Former CTO who designed data systems for trading operations where a wrong architecture decision costs money immediately and unambiguously. Rich translates a business case into architecture that can actually be built — and catches the gap between what a vendor proposes and what the design requires.
Bob Carlson
ERP · Process & Implementation
Bob has been hands-on inside transformations at every stage — not observing them, running them. He has seen every ERP implementation promise made and knows exactly where they fail. He brings the process depth and operational detail that turns a realistic plan into an actual one.
THE TEAM
Most firms hand you off after the sale. We don't have anyone to hand you off to.
The question isn't whether the program is on track.
It's whether it should exist.
A straight conversation.
If we can help, you'll know in 20 minutes.
Get in Touch
Capital Efficacy · IT Balance Sheet · External Risk
PLATEAU
STRATEGY
Four continents. Multiple capital cycles. We've watched brilliant CFOs get blindsided — by vendors selling certainty, by organizations caught in politics, by leaders advancing careers ahead of the balance sheet. We work with CFOs and CIOs so they walk into every room ready to say whether the capital is still earning its place.