So you've jumped the hurdle of the business case and your project has been given approval to proceed. You're patting yourself on the back and then you find out that the funding is conditional. In my opinion, because I have had a rather important project that suffered this fate, you are better off having the project delayed or rejected than having someone say "we've approved the project and given you the $500K, but it's only for this financial year, so you've get to get it in by 30 June."
These artificial deadlines can set a project up for failure and don't allow projects to be run properly. But can you really say "thanks but no thanks" when you get this conditional approval? This depends on the business you work in but, having gone through the grief of this once before, I will push back if I am given an artificial deadline like this again.
If you have been very clear in the business case about how long the project will take, then you have a very clear position to push back on - basic project management theory will tell you that if you want to reduce the time taken for the project then you need to increase the money and/or decrease the scope.
But if you are undertaking a project that has a large cultural change component then, in my opinion, it is not possible to reduce the timeframe without significantly impacting the success of the project. People need time to be consulted, time to review, time to absorb and adjust to the changes - conditional funding or not.
As a side note to this, if you have minor upgrades/enhancements sitting on the shelf and funds have been made available (you know that end of financial year spend) then you can probably go for it and get the benefits of conditional funding - but it is not the way to fund an important business project (IT based or not).
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