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Implementing Beyond Budgeting: Unlocking the Performance Potential
The future of management is here!
Traditional management was invented for very different times and is today in serious trouble. The level of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in business environments is record high. People’s expectations towards their employers and leaders have also radically changed. A number of organizations are exploring management innovation that can help them not just coping but thriving and out-performing in these new and different realities. Beyond Budgeting may be the most important new idea out there addressing these radical changes, due to its broad scope and coherent approach. Abolishing the traditional, detailed annual budget is necessary, but not sufficient. Organizations on the journey are questioning their old leadership beliefs and are tearing up their old command-and-control management models, with “agile” and “human” as the foundation for a new start.
Implementing Beyond Budgeting is both a theoretical introduction and a practical guide to bringing such a more empowered and adaptive management model to life. Drawing on the author’s twenty years of Beyond Budgeting experience, this book not only demonstrates the serious problems with traditional management through numerous practical examples. It also follows several companies on their Beyond Budgeting journey, including Scandinavia’s largest company Statoil where the author has been heading up implementation since 2005. You'll get a first-hand glimpse at the reality of transitioning a large multinational company, and gain a real-world perspective on what successful implementation entails.
This new second edition has been significantly revised and expanded. It covers the amazing development of the Beyond Budgeting movement and how the Statoil implementation journey has continued since the first edition of this book was published in 2009, sustaining major events like for instance the 2015 oil price crash. A new chapter on “Beyond Budgeting and Agile” has also been added. New implementation experiences, great new case stories, new management innovation examples and management metaphors (traffic controls!) are introduced, as well as the author’s latest reflections on a range of management issues including target setting, forecasting, performance evaluation and incentives.
Traditional management was invented for very different times and is today in serious trouble. The level of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in business environments is record high. People’s expectations towards their employers and leaders have also radically changed. A number of organizations are exploring management innovation that can help them not just coping but thriving and out-performing in these new and different realities. Beyond Budgeting may be the most important new idea out there addressing these radical changes, due to its broad scope and coherent approach. Abolishing the traditional, detailed annual budget is necessary, but not sufficient. Organizations on the journey are questioning their old leadership beliefs and are tearing up their old command-and-control management models, with “agile” and “human” as the foundation for a new start.
Implementing Beyond Budgeting is both a theoretical introduction and a practical guide to bringing such a more empowered and adaptive management model to life. Drawing on the author’s twenty years of Beyond Budgeting experience, this book not only demonstrates the serious problems with traditional management through numerous practical examples. It also follows several companies on their Beyond Budgeting journey, including Scandinavia’s largest company Statoil where the author has been heading up implementation since 2005. You'll get a first-hand glimpse at the reality of transitioning a large multinational company, and gain a real-world perspective on what successful implementation entails.
This new second edition has been significantly revised and expanded. It covers the amazing development of the Beyond Budgeting movement and how the Statoil implementation journey has continued since the first edition of this book was published in 2009, sustaining major events like for instance the 2015 oil price crash. A new chapter on “Beyond Budgeting and Agile” has also been added. New implementation experiences, great new case stories, new management innovation examples and management metaphors (traffic controls!) are introduced, as well as the author’s latest reflections on a range of management issues including target setting, forecasting, performance evaluation and incentives.
285 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 24, 2008
80 people are currently reading
560 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 5, 2013
I saw Bjarte talk at Agile Australia 2013 and was blown away by his material. I bought the book before he'd even left the stage. The book is actually a reasonably quick read, despite the subject matter, and is quite digestible if you are interested in business. There's no balance sheets in here, rather it's a compelling treatise on shifting organisational thinking away from the flawed planning processes that currently take place. Highly recommended.
April 17, 2012
The author, Bjarte Bognes, have lead 2 large corporations on their journey to find better approaches than traditional budgeting.
Beyond budgeting aims to do away with budgets in favor of forecasting, target setting and dynamic resource provision.
This is a major change for a company, but the upside is huge. Bognes shares his extensive experience from the implemetation at Borealis and Statoil - Explaining the principles and providing stories and examples on how to do this in practice.
Great book!
Beyond budgeting aims to do away with budgets in favor of forecasting, target setting and dynamic resource provision.
This is a major change for a company, but the upside is huge. Bognes shares his extensive experience from the implemetation at Borealis and Statoil - Explaining the principles and providing stories and examples on how to do this in practice.
Great book!
July 17, 2019
as an agile coach and scrum master i see management and leaders struggle to make other parts than it or sw development work „more agile“. i was reading some other books about hr and alike where i found a lot of references to beyond budgeting as an approach for leaderhip and finance how to be morea agile. i was courious to know more about it.
so i am not a "finance guy" and was prepared to read through (maybe boring) lenghty descriptions of concepts that base on knowlegde out of my core competency. i was positively surprised to find myself reading a really interesting book. written in a language understandable by people like me. interesting story telling across the book. case studies describing bartje ´s quest to "agile budgeting".
if i would have to summarize it for someone i would take the 12 beyond budgeting principles summarized on page 70 and start from there.
I am not sure that our management in the company would actually find this helpful „enough“ to embark on a journey to leave annual budgets behind... its really a lot about mindset and that is hard to grasp. Still a good read!
What I really like about the author is that he is not pretending to have all the answers. It’s a story told by a practitioner who is (continuously) in the middle of figuring out how to do it a little bit better. I would wish that more authors write in such an authentic and humble style.
As a real bookworm i was disappointed that there is no bibliography ... but well that is a minor point.
my personal conclusion: although it seems that only few companies have started to think about how to revolutionise budgeting it seems that there´s hope and the pioneers are out there 🙂
so i am not a "finance guy" and was prepared to read through (maybe boring) lenghty descriptions of concepts that base on knowlegde out of my core competency. i was positively surprised to find myself reading a really interesting book. written in a language understandable by people like me. interesting story telling across the book. case studies describing bartje ´s quest to "agile budgeting".
if i would have to summarize it for someone i would take the 12 beyond budgeting principles summarized on page 70 and start from there.
I am not sure that our management in the company would actually find this helpful „enough“ to embark on a journey to leave annual budgets behind... its really a lot about mindset and that is hard to grasp. Still a good read!
What I really like about the author is that he is not pretending to have all the answers. It’s a story told by a practitioner who is (continuously) in the middle of figuring out how to do it a little bit better. I would wish that more authors write in such an authentic and humble style.
As a real bookworm i was disappointed that there is no bibliography ... but well that is a minor point.
my personal conclusion: although it seems that only few companies have started to think about how to revolutionise budgeting it seems that there´s hope and the pioneers are out there 🙂
April 20, 2025
One of the best business books I have read. Such as shame, that I have never heard of it during my university studies, despite the book was out there already.
This part of management approach was missing in curriculum.
Working in many corporates, the anecdotes outlined by Mr. Bogsnes are 100% accurate. I can totally recommend to everyone who wants to shift from a standard hierarchy to more lean oriented orgs.
Current example from business:
Bayer, leading pharmaceutical company, recently introduced a model called Dynamic Shared Ownership. Worth following the case which is still in progress.
This part of management approach was missing in curriculum.
Working in many corporates, the anecdotes outlined by Mr. Bogsnes are 100% accurate. I can totally recommend to everyone who wants to shift from a standard hierarchy to more lean oriented orgs.
Current example from business:
Bayer, leading pharmaceutical company, recently introduced a model called Dynamic Shared Ownership. Worth following the case which is still in progress.
January 27, 2020
Un libro fondamentale per capire come un'azienda possa vivere senza il tradizionale processo di Budget. Basata sull'esperienza diretta dell'autore, che ha implementato i concetti di Beyond Budgeting in due grandi aziende, il libro analizza il cambiamento necessario a tutti i livelli aziendali.
Non una ricetta pronta all'uso, quanto piuttosto una accurata descrizione degli step da intraprendere, con le lezioni apprese dai casi passati.
Non una ricetta pronta all'uso, quanto piuttosto una accurata descrizione degli step da intraprendere, con le lezioni apprese dai casi passati.
September 28, 2020
Excelente libro consolida muy bien conocimiento teórico y práctico
Muy practico, consolida bien la teoría con la práctica. Bastante bien estructurado y ordenado, la manera en que explica los pasos, los problemas que se dan, los retos, los posibles errores y en especial la razón por la cual el proceso agrega mucho valor, es excelente.
Muy practico, consolida bien la teoría con la práctica. Bastante bien estructurado y ordenado, la manera en que explica los pasos, los problemas que se dan, los retos, los posibles errores y en especial la razón por la cual el proceso agrega mucho valor, es excelente.
December 8, 2020
Very interesting personal trajectory and tale of his hands on experience. It's just a first step towards implementing BB but every travel (alone or together) starts with a first step. About BB feels like it is the natural envelope to Business Model, Value propositions, agile product development so worth exploring and translating to a given product organization.
December 16, 2018
Great informal read and intro to an interesting subject.
Great informal read and intro to an interesting subject. My interest emerged from Agile management, and it's now part of my MBA study program.
Great informal read and intro to an interesting subject. My interest emerged from Agile management, and it's now part of my MBA study program.
August 28, 2020
Mostly based on anecdotes, Bogsnes makes a case for a front-line approach. Budget spending should be planned and executed locally, with high level KPIs guiding individual decisions instead of rigid year-by-year plans.
November 6, 2020
Inspirador pero poco práctico
Considero que plantea una visión profunda y transformadora de ls organizaciones combinando personas, presupuesto y objetivos. Pero parece carecer de un proceso e experimentación inicial, que permita ir descubriendo el camino...
Considero que plantea una visión profunda y transformadora de ls organizaciones combinando personas, presupuesto y objetivos. Pero parece carecer de un proceso e experimentación inicial, que permita ir descubriendo el camino...
February 9, 2017
I really needed to read it eight years ago. We have followed the same way, but with this guidance would have walked further.
Another must read for CFO, HR, CEO
Another must read for CFO, HR, CEO
May 9, 2019
A great book that will help you move your business to enterprise agility
June 11, 2018
My review could be found here: https://bit.ly/2sMw6om.
October 26, 2014
Budgeting has been a subject I've wondered for a long time. I do understand how budgeting works, but I've never really understood why it is there. Implementing Beyond Budgeting by Bjarte Bogsnes didn't explain to me why budgeting should be done, but it told, why it shouldn't be done.
This is essential book for any modern organization. Traditional budgeting will slowly fade away and there will come new ways to lead companies and handle costs. Bjarte says that he might be too hard on some aspects of traditional budgeting and make some things too black and white. I didn't really feel like so. I believe budgets make so much harm in organizations, that Bjarte could have been even more strict on the effects of those.
This book isn't a how to do Beyond Budgeting guide, but a story about the underlying principles and two journeys towards the ideology. Stories and ideas will give a good guidance how to start implementation, but there is definitely lot of thinking needed.
What I love in the book is that tells realistically about the change. Implementing change needs lots of discussions, persuasion and time. Creating a new process or guidelines doesn't really change anything. The mindset behind actions needs to change. Bjarte tells about two organizations that have been on this journey. He admits that other journey was still ongoing as the book was written. The change started many years before, but it was still continuing.
I highly recommend this book to everyone interested on improving the companies they are working at. This topic needs much more attention. There are some valid reasons behind budgets, but most of the reasons are just barriers for creating value to customers or constrains making people unhappy at work or pure waste. Changing traditional budgeting is important topic and this book was a good peek to the topic.
This review was originally published in my blog - here
This is essential book for any modern organization. Traditional budgeting will slowly fade away and there will come new ways to lead companies and handle costs. Bjarte says that he might be too hard on some aspects of traditional budgeting and make some things too black and white. I didn't really feel like so. I believe budgets make so much harm in organizations, that Bjarte could have been even more strict on the effects of those.
This book isn't a how to do Beyond Budgeting guide, but a story about the underlying principles and two journeys towards the ideology. Stories and ideas will give a good guidance how to start implementation, but there is definitely lot of thinking needed.
What I love in the book is that tells realistically about the change. Implementing change needs lots of discussions, persuasion and time. Creating a new process or guidelines doesn't really change anything. The mindset behind actions needs to change. Bjarte tells about two organizations that have been on this journey. He admits that other journey was still ongoing as the book was written. The change started many years before, but it was still continuing.
I highly recommend this book to everyone interested on improving the companies they are working at. This topic needs much more attention. There are some valid reasons behind budgets, but most of the reasons are just barriers for creating value to customers or constrains making people unhappy at work or pure waste. Changing traditional budgeting is important topic and this book was a good peek to the topic.
This review was originally published in my blog - here
September 15, 2013
A great book for teaching alternatives to budgeting and implementing a more iterative or rolling model for finance.
Unfortunately I fear that the passion against management may turn off some readers who don't have the patience to get past the first fifty pages. It isn't that I disagree with it, it is just somewhat unexpected and quite lengthy. I can appreciate that it is a fundamental core of Bjarte's model - strength in leadership.
My biggest issue with this book is lack of examples. I'm not talking about high level examples that Bjarte has experienced - but really detailed specifics. I had trouble understanding what he was referring to by good and bad KPIs and without literal examples I felt lost. This was a common theme for a number of concepts - I wanted to see pages and pages of real data, real examples.
I don't feel like I could take this book and implement it without a tonne of extra questions and that for me means it didn't hit the mark.
Unfortunately I fear that the passion against management may turn off some readers who don't have the patience to get past the first fifty pages. It isn't that I disagree with it, it is just somewhat unexpected and quite lengthy. I can appreciate that it is a fundamental core of Bjarte's model - strength in leadership.
My biggest issue with this book is lack of examples. I'm not talking about high level examples that Bjarte has experienced - but really detailed specifics. I had trouble understanding what he was referring to by good and bad KPIs and without literal examples I felt lost. This was a common theme for a number of concepts - I wanted to see pages and pages of real data, real examples.
I don't feel like I could take this book and implement it without a tonne of extra questions and that for me means it didn't hit the mark.
April 11, 2013
Case studies and some theory!
May 31, 2015
This is an innovative approach to getting the right work done at the right tie. Too bad most companies are afraid to try this method.....
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews