Last weekend’s implosion of Texas Stadium (which took place just down the road from Beyond Budgeting Round Table [BBRT] North America headquarters) made me think of something highly respected Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry once said about planning:

“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

In practice, I find that many organizations commit two common planning errors when it comes to setting their target goals. more

Most of us have heard IT folks utter the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.”

Techies use this term, especially when lecturing nontechies in other parts of the business, to emphasize that an information system is only as good as the data we feed into it.

I came across a phrase that describes a similar dynamic at work within traditional corporate planning and budgeting systems: “fantasy in, fantasy out.” more

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper knew a thing or two about the need for change.

The U.S. computer science pioneer once said that “the most damaging phrase in the language is: ‘It’s always been done that way.’” (I wholeheartedly agree with Rear Admiral Hopper.)

When she uttered those words, Hopper, who was nicknamed “Grandma COBOL” for her role in laying the foundation for that computer language, could have been speaking to the folks in charge of corporate planning functions.

Fortunately, things are changing in the realm of corporate planning.

I’ll be examining this change in an April 8 Webcast with Business Finance editor in chief Jack Sweeney. We will present fresh findings from a new budgeting best practices survey of more than 200 finance executives.

Tune in and you’ll see why a growing number of North American companies are recognizing that the traditional budgeting process does not compute. ###

Have you ever made an innovative suggestion, only to hear a negative response, followed by the standby, “We’ve always done things this way”? Or worse, have you been guilty of using that phrase?

This week, I was fortunate to attend a meeting of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table in Copenhagen. The meeting presented four compelling case studies of companies implementing the Beyond Budgeting methodology around the globe. These implementers are certainly doing things differently.

However, on the flights back home I ran into a series of unsavory weather conditions and process errors that left me 12 hours behind my travel schedule and ultimately stranded me overnight at a Comfort Inn in Austin, Texas. more

I am writing this blog form Jackson, Wyo., in the shadows of the Grand Tetons, where I have enjoyed an excellent Spring Break trip with my family. The beauty of the mountains and the wildlife (elk, moose, Canadian geese, and dozens more) gave me time and space to reflect.

It wasn’t all fun, however … as we took our kids skiing (for some of us, the outing marked the first time on the big mountains). It had been over 20 years since I had tried to ski. My wife said it would be like riding a bicycle – “You’ll pick it back up instantly.” I never remember being that terrified when riding a bike.

We spent most of the first day with a patient instructor who walked us through a series of baby steps, each instruction building on the one he presented previously. By the end of the day, those baby steps made us confident enough to try the big slope on our own. more