The organization's goal is to develop and deploy solutions rapidly in response to changing market needs. This requires a shift from traditional, siloed structures to a more agile and responsive model. Funding persistent teams aligned to value streams is a core principle of Lean-Agile budgeting. This approach provides dedicated, long-lived teams with the autonomy and stable funding to continuously deliver value, experiment, and pivot quickly based on market feedback, directly addressing the organization's stated goal. It moves away from the stop-start nature of project-based funding, which is often slow and bureaucratic.

B. Switch to funding programmes and projects: This represents a traditional approach that hinders agility. Funding discrete projects creates temporary teams and introduces delays through repeated approval cycles, which is contrary to the goal of rapid, continuous deployment.

C. Provide additional funding to development and operations: Increasing the budget within the existing siloed structure does not solve the underlying process and cultural issues. The problem is the way of working, not the amount of money available.

D. Provide additional funding via the research and development budget: This addresses only the innovation aspect, not the end-to-end lifecycle of development and deployment. It fails to change the core funding model that is preventing rapid delivery of solutions.

1. AXELOS, ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy. (2020). TSO (The Stationery Office).

Section 4.3.3.2, 'Funding and financial management': This section explicitly contrasts traditional project-based funding with modern approaches. It states, "In a product-centric organization, funding is allocated to value streams, not projects... This allows the product teams to continuously improve the product and deliver value to customers without having to go through a lengthy and bureaucratic project approval process for every new feature or improvement." This directly supports option A.

Section 5.2.2, 'Lean and Agile methods': This section discusses how adopting Lean and Agile methods requires changes in governance, including financial governance. It emphasizes the shift towards funding teams and value streams to enable a continuous flow of work and faster feedback loops, which aligns with the scenario's objective.