Thanks to my readers who have been with me through my last 10 years or so in the budgeting and forecasting software space. It's time for my last post of the year and I'd like to plant a seed for change in 2014.
I noted: "...pundits refer to the budgeting process as a headache; the goal is to reduce pain. Others note that budgeting is about not failing*. Most agree that budgeting has very little to do with doing the right thing to drive your business forward. Business planning is all about doing the right thing. The “right thing” requires planning at the right level of detail with the right people in the room to make financially-sound decisions at the right time to drive your business forward and impact the bottom line."
In 2013, I asked the following questions:
- What if management “connected” with the actual workers in the field?
- What if, instead of “here’s your number,” management met with operations managers to co-build a driver-based model that reflected the actual activities that result in value to the company’s customers?
- What if management and operations continuously learned from one another?
- What if everyone who showed up at work was on the same page?
For my new year's resolution and to the few but dedicated readers of this blog, I am dedicating my time to help people (not just finance people) get to a more metrics-driven culture focusing on key drivers and doing things that make the most impact in order to create more meaning and engagement in our workforce.
I may slightly revise these questions and possibly shif the focus of this blog by replacing the word "budget" with "annual performance review" and "business planning" with "continuous goal setting and tracking"
Here are some more questions to consider:
- What if everyone's goals and metrics were visible across the entire organization?
- What if every employee wrote down their goals and tracked their progress each week with their manager?
By the way, I am going to be sharing best practices for how to make this happen in 2014.
Stay tuned!
-Ben