Metered Funding: Why Giving Teams Freedom With Clear Milestones Drives True Accountability

In traditional budgeting, project leaders spend months lobbying for the biggest slice of the annual pie—and once it’s theirs, it’s rarely taken away, even if things go badly. This approach, called entitlement funding, encourages teams to 'play it safe,' avoid risk, and delay launches long enough for performance (or problems) to become someone else's concern.

Metered funding turns this system upside down. Teams get smaller amounts of money, with the freedom to use it any way they need. The catch: they must show real learning or validated progress before unlocking more. In practice, this builds accountability—failures are smaller and faster, and teams remain focused on results that matter, rather than just consuming budget until the next cycle. For the organization, this means projects die early if they aren’t working, and the best ideas get more resources, not less.

Research on incentive systems shows that moving from entitlement to metered funding reduces politics, speeds up key decisions, and increases innovation—by tying resources to real evidence, not empty plans.

When planning your next initiative or project, propose a budget that’s split into small, milestone-driven segments. Give your team or yourself the mandate to spend the funds as needed, with the understanding that more money or resources will be unlocked only when certain real progress markers are hit. Share what you’ve learned with stakeholders at each checkpoint, and keep moving forward—or pivoting—as fast as you discover what works. By running your project this way, you’ll minimize wasted time and maximize results.