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.”

The term appeared in an op-ed piece written by former Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director Douglas Holtz-Eakin. He used the phrase to criticize the approach the CBO uses to analyze the potential financial impact of Congressional legislation (he was talking about the health care legislation).

“The budget office,” Holtz-Eakin writes, “is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out. In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges ….”

Wouldn’t it be nice to clearly see the road ahead as it will likely happen? Free from wishful thinking, free from period-end hockey sticks, and without the endless negotiations that comprise our fantastical budgeting games?

I’m extremely excited to hear how Beyond Budgeting practitioners have come to grips with reality by stripping out the gimmicks and budgetary games from their companies in favor of more effective, agile, adaptive, and, above all, more realistic approaches. I’ll be doing that at the 9th annual Beyond Budgeting Roundtable Conference, which takes place April 21-23 in Dallas.

The conference features insights and real-world accounts from frontline implementers like Elkay’s John Hrudicka, tw telecom’s Nevine White, Statoil Hydro’s Bjarte Bogsnes, Unilever’s Steve Morlidge, and Park Nicollet’s David Cooke.

There’s still room to attend. If you do, I promise that you will emerge from the conference with an entirely different picture of planning, forecasting, and budgeting. And you will be on your way to leaving the fantasy world behind. ###