B.U.D.G.E.T.

Hey, happy Monday.

If you are looking for space in your calendar to devote to strategy and OKRs, I have good news for you today.

You can subtract it from the dedicated one for the budget.

The budget represents a company that does not exist.

In fact, the most common process for writing the document is to duplicate the one from the past year and add any percentage to increase all the numbers.

Yet for many this is the only strategic document available!

Here’s how not to waste valuable time on useless and-often dangerous- spreadsheets.

But first some service announcements regarding your progress in the community.

Why is the Budget not working?

1. Bureaucratic: Ingresses with rules that do not always result in efficiency.
2. Uniforming: Levels downward, allowing no room for innovation.
3. Distorting: Steers away from real business priorities, focusing on costs.
4. Burdensome: Creates an administrative workload that often adds no value.
5. Excessive: Encourages a focus on control rather than strategy.
6. Temporary: Often obsolete before it can be fully implemented due to rapidly changing markets.

It is important to conceive of money as a dynamic resource to be redistributed regularly to support growth.

Let me give you an (optimistic) example.

Imagine that you have defined your marketing budget, and in your spreadsheet, column by column, the numbers have been stacked with logical rigor.

During the first few months of the year you notice that initiatives are bringing better results than expected. Every euro invested in marketing brings 10 in sales. Basically a money printing machine.

What is the most sensible thing you would do?

Here’s what I would do: increase the budget to the maximum limit you can handle!

Here the budget lasted only a few days.

But if everything is rigidly framed and other teams are not having the same success, they will probably protect their own resources. In fact, it is very common to resort to therapeutic overkill instead of redesigning or decommissioning projects that are not working.

When is the budget necessary?

The budget is evidence of strategy execution because from its items it is possible to understand the investments to achieve strategic goals.

“To understand a company’s strategy, you have to look at what it does and not what it says.”
– Andy Grove

Which means there is no point in writing on the slides that you will do something if there is no budget associated with it.

We want to become a company [insert change] !
Budget for [the change]: zero.

Using Make Progress tools to improve budgeting and resource allocation for growth

With OKRs you acquire not only a tool to control the strategy but also the rhythm to execute it.

Teams enter Execution Mode where they consume resources, after passing from the other 3 operational modes in which they generate them. I discuss this in detail here.

With a robust set of metrics, everyone in the company can understand where the game is being won and where it is not, so that energy (time, money and talent) can be redistributed quickly.

How to do it in 90 minutes, together

Consider attending The Growth Machine Workshop.

The first available date is today Monday, November 20, at 12:00 p.m..

Maximum 10 people for 90 minutes of intense, guided work with the goal of codifying the mechanics of growth into a single pattern, valid for every level of the organization, from which to begin the work of aligning, executing and accelerating the strategy.

I have conducted this workshop with leaders of organizations in Italy and abroad, and years after its design, the Growth Machine continues to be the most stable element of the strategic and innovation framework of those who have adopted it.

It is as powerful as it is simple.

It is necessary to purchase a Pass. This allows you to have colleagues who are truly motivated to work with you in the room and, at the same time, support the project by accessing (as inexpensively as possible) the certified tools developed at STRTGY.

Those who have done so have achieved:

• A crystal-clear vision of one’s strategy.

• Understanding what metrics to look at to see if it is going in the right direction.

• The ability to be able to say no to distractions, that is, to all those activities that blatantly do not contribute to increasing the growth of the company.

• Increased speed and accuracy in prioritization.

• A team that finally knows what to do and no longer needs babysitters.

• Writing OKRs 10× faster (for those who use this management technique, you don’t have to and it is not required, but if you want to, know that you will save a lot of time with this exercise)

• Feedback and support from other professionals who will participate with you.

In addition to:

• The recording of the session
• The template for making the forecast and plotting the North Star Metric (new)
• The book MAKE PROGRESS with OKRs
• Access to the full OKR Toolkit.

You will benefit from a full money-back guarantee. If at the end of the workshop you feel you have wasted your time, just raise your hand and I will refund 100% of your PASS immediately.

There is always time to check budgets,
now is the time to work on your grand strategy.

I’ll wait for you in the room,

ALWAYS MAKE PROGRESS ⤴

PS: On Wednesday I will announce the next STRTGY Meeting with a guest speaker, Italian, at the top of a large international company. The subject line of the email will be The Art Of Sales. Don’t miss it.

Related Notes

• The budget that is coming
• How to make Sales Objectives and OKRs coexist?

Occasions to meet live

• Nov. 9, 2023, Young Forum, Multipurpose Center, Cesena Fiera
• November 17, 2023, AIOKR DAY, Camplus Turro, Milan, Italy

Will you be around? Email me to shake hands.