Surviving Budget Season

It’s that special time of year. The trees are turning, apples need picking, and CFOs everywhere are bracing for the budget season.?A few gentle reminders to help keep you and your team focused during the most challenging debates.

Keep your long-term strategy in the forefront – What does your enterprise strategy tell you comes next? What project did you fight for last year that didn’t make the cut but still has merit? Be willing to redraw the lines if individual projects within your long-term strategy no longer fit the needs of the organization. Remember, you know a lot more now than you did a year ago.

Take an enterprise view – Does funding an accounting project mean that another area of the organization will have to commit resources during design or testing??Be aware of all impacted teams. Seek them out, plan for them, and budget for their resources.

Consider funding the little guy – While keeping the enterprise view front and center, work to bring funding to as many areas as possible. Rather than having individual organizations compete for dollars, consider allocating funds for major enterprise initiatives while still setting aside money for individual teams. That small automation project that will improve the customer experience often can’t compete with the data analytics project with an 8X return. What can you do creatively to fund both?

Remember to manage the impact of change – As you plan 2022’s projects and investments, remember to take a step back and a step forward. Zooming out can help you understand the amount of change you’re introducing into the organization. Is it reasonable? Is any part of the organization impacted by every project (think learning and development, CM or HR)? Now zoom in. Is any one group of employees impacted beyond their capacity for change?

Have fun – Really! Despite the hectic and sometimes contentious nature of budget creation, this is the time to share ideas, create alliances and collaborate to make your teams and your company shine in 2022.

Good luck and enjoy the ride (oh, and the apple picking)!