I’m happy to report that in recent weeks, I’ve been asked by more than one business writer to share my insights on the changing landscape of corporate budgeting, forecasting, and planning.

It seems that business magazine editors sense that some of the recession-driven changes to traditional planning approaches (e.g., moving to rolling forecasts, implementing scenario planning, and even ditching the budget in some cases) may be here to stay.

In case you missed these articles or have yet to see them (one of them will be published by APQC shortly), here are some highlights of these trend discussions. more

As we move into summer, change has been on my mind.

Sitting on my desk is a copy of the Harvard Business Review’s June issue, the cover of which promotes a series of articles titled “Managing Change: How to Do It, When to Do It.”

I found great value in the article “Change for Change’s Sake,” which begins on page 71. The article compares companies to the human body. The piece then examines how managers can identify and eliminate buildups of “corporate cholesterol,” which are “human dynamics that limit communication, creativity, and efficient resource allocation.”

(I suspect you know what comparison I’m about to make here: The human dynamics that the traditional budgeting process causes certainly qualify as corporate cholesterol.)

Sitting on my bedside table is a copy of Switch, the best-selling business book by Dan Heath and Chip Heath. This happens to be the current selection in The Player Group’s monthly book club. Our staff is reading and discussing the book to gain insights into how well we manage change, how we might manage change more effectively, and how we might help our clients and members address their own planning-related change challenges. more

Unlike too many business forecasts these days, there is one forecast most of us in the United States pay close attention to this time of year: the hurricane forecast.

This year’s forecast was released a couple of weeks ago, and the picture looks troubling, yet instructive. more

The sports world lost one of its icons last week when the legendary former UCLA coach John Wooden died.

Wooden guided and inspired an incredibly talented and impressive group of players, including Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Marques Johnson, Jamal Wilkes, Henry Bibby, and many, many more.

He also inspired individuals and organizations outside the realm of college basketball. In fact, Wooden once said something that ought to inspire and motivate corporate finance executive and managers:

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”

Earlier in my career, during the early ‘90s, I had some exposure to the Coach Wooden, after he had retired from coaching. more

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Chaman Jain, the editor of the Journal of Business Forecasting, at a conference in San Francisco.

Jain has been writing about business forecasting for years, and his publication regularly provides analyses of forecasting best practices.

Here’s a 2005 column from the journal that provides some soul-searching fodder for CFOs, financial planning & analysis directors, and other finance folks who occasionally encounter the need to address – or answer – the Big Question: Why do we forecast, anyway? more