The Trojan Horse that leads your Transformation to Agility

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Did your enterprise agile transformation start with the Finance and HR departments? No? You are not alone. Are they on the roadmap to be next? Maybe they should be…

Agile is a mindset and a habit, using some frameworks and practices. However, it is hard to be agile when we need to provide all the answers at the end of each year for the entire following year or when we report in a waterfall manner. So, the way we do budgeting, forecasting, performance assessment, rewards & recognition, and cost control can be either enabling or hindering agility. 

In this episode, we’ll walk through an example of how we transform the whole organisation by stealth by evolving the Finance and HR departments. By evolving it this way, you achieve the transformation at a fraction of the price of traditional transformation programmes.

[Episode 8] Beyond Budgeting: 25 Years of Management Innovation – Our Agile Tales

Welcome back to Our Agile Tales as we continue our conversation with Bjarte Bogsnes, exploring case studies from his latest book, This Is Beyond Budgeting. The book distills nearly three decades of experience challenging traditional budgeting, targets, and control-based management.In this final episode of the series, we discuss with Bjarte what distinguishes business models (external interaction) from management models (internal organization). He introduces the Viable Map, inspired by the Business Model Canvas, to help management teams assess their management model against the 12 Beyond Budgeting principles, considering business environment from SUSO (simple, understood, stable, orderly) to VUCA and employees on a Theory X–Y scale. He emphasizes the need for coherence between values/purpose-based leadership claims and often “fixed” budgeting processes, calling mismatches “poisonous gaps.” He argues listed companies can adopt beyond budgeting, as markets want sustainable performance, and recommends starting by separating budget purposes—targets, forecasts, and resource allocation—implemented in parallel. He contrasts beyond budgeting’s enterprise-wide focus with Agile’s origins in software, shares disappointing and rewarding client experiences, and points listeners to bbrt.org and key books.Key topics and timestamps00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro01:09 Business vs Management Models01:59 Viable Map Framework05:16 Assessing Coherence Gaps08:02 Empowerment Needs Process Change09:40 Markets Wall Street Myths12:08 Why Beyond Budgeting Sticks14:34 Where to Start Separating Budgets17:45 Pilots vs Big Bang19:12 Disappointing Transformation Story21:20 Most Rewarding Successes23:06 Learn More About Beyond Budgeting25:20 Wrap Up and Next SeriesAbout Bjarte BogsnesBjarte Bogsnes is Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table, a former global finance executive, and a leading thinker in management innovation. He is the author of Implementing Beyond Budgeting and This Is Beyond Budgeting, showing how organizations can replace rigid, calendar-driven systems with models built on trust, transparency, and adaptability — creating companies that are both more responsive and more human.Follow Bjarte at:https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjarte-bogsnes-41557910/Music: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about
  1. [Episode 8] Beyond Budgeting: 25 Years of Management Innovation
  2. [Episode 7] Beyond Budgeting: 25 Years of Management Innovation
  3. [Episode 6] Beyond Budgeting: 25 Years of Management Innovation
  4. [Episode 5] Beyond Budgeting: 25 Years of Management Innovation
  5. [Episode 4] Beyond Budgeting: 25 Years of Management Innovation
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