In strategic planning, a resource-allocation decision is a plan for using available resources, especially in the near term, to achieve goals for the future.

The plan has two parts: (1) the basic allocation decision; and (2) contingency mechanisms. The basic allocation decision is the choice of which items to fund in the plan (and the level of funding)and which to leave unfunded: the resources are allocated to some items, not to others.

There are two contingency mechanisms: (1) a priority ranking of items excluded from the plan, showing which items to fund if more resources should become available; (2) a priority ranking of some items included in the plan, showing which items should be sacrificed if total funding must be reduced.