From budget tension to strategic alignment: the power of participatory budgeting

Theme: Collaboration | Strategy

This talk presents how a French government agency transformed a traditionally complex budgeting process into a collaborative, strategic exercise using participatory budgeting within the SAFe framework.

By bringing together business leaders and value stream representatives, the organisation allocates resources collectively based on strategic priorities and expected impact.

Through pitches, workshops and transparent discussions, top leaders decide where investments should go. The approach improves alignment, transparency and agility while revealing organisational maturity in prioritisation and strategy execution.

This session also shares practical lessons, challenges encountered and key factors for successfully implementing participatory budgeting at scale.

Participant takeaways:

• How to design and run a participatory budgeting event
• How to align value streams and initiatives with strategy and OKRs before allocating budgets
• Practical lessons on preparing stakeholders and structuring the decision process
• Common pitfalls and cultural challenges when introducing collaborative budgeting
• How participatory budgeting can improve transparency, alignment and strategic investment decisions in large organisations