Resource Fluidity

Budgeting has to evolve. I’ve been a secret fan of practitioners, Bjarte Bogsnes (one of the authors) and Steve Morlidge, over the years. These guys have been pioneering new approaches to planning, and this article lays out the key highlights. Every leader should understand these points about target setting, forecasting, and resource allocation.

This is a decently deep discussion of project specific risk versus portfolio level risk AND how to manage these risks such that capital is not being held captive as contingency funds/reserves in hundreds of different projects or initiative programs across an organization. I like the way the article puts the burden on executives to look across the portfolio and to create “robust process or consistency between projects”. Great overview of the challenges and opportunities to free up funds as companies begin to invest capital in the post pandemic period (hopefully).

This article does a great job of summarizing some of the key risks and mitigation efforts to enable what the authors call a “resilient supply chain”. The article also talks (although only briefly) about how resource planning methods can be used to analyze risk and identify mitigation opportunities for early signs of break points (definitely read the sidebar on the medical device company!).

This is an extremely well-written summary of scenario planning. Having just written a joint post on the same topic, I appreciated the clarity of thought as well as the methods that are outlined. Especially significant were both the lenses for identifying the uncertainties at the beginning of the process and the “signposts” to detect early evidence of marketplace shifts at the end of the process. I would suggest bookmarking this post, so it is ready to be shared with your colleagues.

Though this post is not my traditional type of selection for resource fluidity, this article looks at office space and begins to consider what’s really needed as we begin to get back to convening within physical spaces. The authors review the main reasons for physical office space and then move on to explore the main attributes that should be considered for a reduced footprint. This is a topic on many people’s minds and it greatly impacts resources.

The idea of matching talent to strategy is such a basic concept. It’s common sense that organizations need to hire and/or build key capabilities to deliver on future strategy. However, I feel like many businesses are slow to respond. This post mentions how private equity firms build value by aggressively deploying purpose-fit talent against a clearly defined value creation plan (VCP). With this strict intentionality, they outperform their traditional counterparts. Why can’t all organizations do the same?

Here is an article about getting your corporation’s head up to sense the environment, so you can iteratively detect, discuss, & align around a set of commonly held assumptions about the future. I love all articles that challenge teams to understand one another and to share understanding transparently.

Having worked as a facilitator of cross-boundary collaborations focused on solving complex problems, I found this article on joint planning between CPG companies and retailers as a super fun read. The article explores the benefits, the barriers, and the key practices to succeed in this joint work.

Deep dive into scenario planning. Not for the faint of heart, so only go there if you love the topic. The chapter/short book explores characteristics of scenario planning like time horizons, the definition of “uncertainties, what I deem to be the meaning of internally consistent futures, and lots more.

Great video interview (and complementary article) that discusses Tata Steel and what appears to be a corporate wide transformation initiative focused on value creation and agility. I recommend watching the video in its entirety. Around minute twelve of the video, the speaker transitions into a deep dive on their work to enhance both their demand planning and their sales and operations planning. I loved the way that Dr. Svend Lassen of Tata Steel speaks to the enhanced visibility, the evolving cross-boundary collaboration, and the value capture from developing better PLANNING. I’m sure it was a ton of work, but it’s exactly what we should be seeing at all of our corporations! Nice work.

I know that this is not a traditional resource planning or resource allocation article, but it may be a new way for all of us to think about shared resources! This article lays out how businesses are leveraging one another’s resources to conduct business. It’s a variation on ecosystems … but not really. In this article, the authors discuss how businesses are taking advantage of idle capacity, tangible and intangible, of their peer companies so they can “do better with less”. They say that the B2B shared economy could be a trillion dollar market. I love the myriad of examples that the authors highlight.