Analysis: Common symptoms of resource-governance problems
list of common symptoms whose root cause is financial/budgeting/resource-governance processes to help you decide if change would be beneficial.

Sample chapter (problems solved): The Story of Poor Robert
who followed "best practices" in financial and resource-governance processes, to his dismay!

Analysis: Resource-governance challenges faced by shared-services executives
problems and solutions

Analysis: Resource-governance challenges faced by enterprise executives
problems and solutions

Anecdote: Take It Out of Hide
budgets have to be cut, but clients go on expecting all the same deliverables.

Case Study: A Budget Aligned with Expectations
a straightforward solution to budgets out of synch with business needs, "do more with less," expectations exceeding resources, lack of perceived value of your function, and more (from an IT department)

Column: How to Use Financial Processes to Be Strategic and Transformational
financial processes go far beyond accounting, affecting the culture and performance of the enterprise.
ChiefExecutive.net (Chief Executive Magazine), August 9, 2013

Executive summary: The internal economy
market-based financial/resource-governance, including budgeting, service catalogs, cost modeling, project intake and priority setting (demand management), and chargebacks

Synopsis: Costs, Managing Expectations, and Value Delivered
tackling budget problems with internal market economics
(the basic concepts in just two pages)

Video: Overview of Internal Market Economics
a brief video that explains the concept of internal market economics (10 min)

Video: Interview on Internal Market Economics
an interview with Dean Meyer, author of Internal Market Economics, which explores the very real financial decision-making and demand-management problems caused by traditional budgeting and resource-governance processes, and explains how principles of market economics can be applied inside organizations to solve these common problems,
from SmartPros' Financial Management Network, July 13, 2013 (22 min)

Lecture: Webinar on internal market economics
the problems created by traditional financial processes, the vision of internal market economics, the benefits, and how to implement it.
Soundview Live, August 6, 2013 (60 min)

IT Service Management (ITIL) and internal market economics

"...investment-based budgeting was one of the highest-payoff projects we did all year."

Lee Gerney CIO, Yolo County, CA

Executive summary: Investment-based budgeting
forecasting the costs of planned projects and services, not just what you plan to spend

Case Study: A Budget Aligned with Expectations
a straightforward solution to budgets out of synch with business needs, "do more with less," expectations exceeding resources, lack of perceived value of your function, and more (from an IT department)

Video Case Study: The C-level View of Budgeting: Facts and Politics
from the C-suite perspective, how investment-based budgeting not only changed the financials; it changed the relationships between IT and the entire corporation's executive leadership team (30 min)

Video Case Study: Service Costing and Investment-based Budgeting
State of Montana IT shares its reasons, implementation experiences, and results (30 min)

Audio case study: selling a transparent budget is easy
State of Montana IT finds ready acceptance at every level for its investment-based budget. (15 min)

Video Case Study: How to Run IT as a Business
Georgia State University CIO describes the impacts on client relationships and internal entrepreneurship (17 min)

Video Case Study: How to Run IT as a Business (abridged)
Georgia State University CIO describes the impacts on client relationships and internal entrepreneurship (5 min)

Case Study: From Adversaries to Advocates
Georgia State University IT describes how budgeting and product/service costing improved relationships between IT and its clients at Georgia State University. (2009)

Case Study: We've Already Got Budget Spreadsheets, Don't We?
Sonoco Products Co. discovered the value of a fully developed budgeting and product/service costing tool. (2009)

"It was very fortuitous that we'd implemented FullCost when we did. Now [under pressure to cut costs] I can walk into my boss's office and say, `Here's my budget and what things cost. What do you think isn't important anymore?'"

J.L. Albert CIO, Georgia State University

Case Study: Can You Really Know Your Full Cost of Service?
how one CIO justified new rates and clarified the value of IT to clients
at Riverside County, CA. (2007)

Case Study: Cost Transparency Enables Strategic Cost Cutting
Riverside County IT cut costs without risking the whole business. (2009)

Case Study: Developing Leaders' Business Acumen
how a new budget process turned into Entrepreneurship 101
at the University of Maine. (2008)

Case Study: Re-inventing the Budget Process
the cost of success: interviews with CIOs on the benefits of budgeting for products/services. (pre-2008)
by magazine writer Karen Terese O'Leary

"My organization had been under-spending on information technology for years. With FullCost, at a time where other budgets were shrinking, my budget actually went up because clients favored the new process and were able to defend their worthwhile investments."

Lew Davison CIO, Missouri Highway and Transportation Department

Challenges addressed by investment-based budgeting, departmental
problems and solutions

Challenges addressed by investment-based budgeting, enterprise
problems and solutions

Analysis: Value of departmental product/service costing to CEOs
10 reasons why CEOs should demand product/service costs from every department

Story: Start the Year Out Wrong (Jan 2005)
budgeting is a form of portfolio management

Story: No More Games! (October 2006)
how knowing the true cost of your products/services can change the nature of budget negotiations

Story: Budgeting Is a Waste!
how standing up for the truth broke the cycle of misery and failure

Story: Operational Planning (Oct 2004)
why operational planning, budgeting, and rate setting must be a single, integrated process

Analysis: Why integrate business and budget planning
the one-year plan for business, resources, investments, budgets and rates

Story: Operational Planning (Oct 2004)
why operational planning, budgeting, and rate setting must be a single, integrated process

Essay: Best Practices In Budgeting
an introduction to investment-based budgeting.

Essay: Why real zero-based budgeting requires investment-based budgeting
why CFOs should mandate an entirely different format for budgets.

Podcast: How To Get The Money You Need For IT
every service owner is an internal entrepreneur who needs a catalog, demand management, service costing, and investment-based budgeting.
Practitioner Radio with Troy DuMoulin and George Spalding, VPs, Pink Elephant (32 min)

Essay: Demand Forecasting and Service-based Funding
catalogs, demand management, service costing, and investment-based budgeting as a single integrated process.
with Troy DuMoulin, VP of research, innovation, and product development, Pink Elephant

Video Overview: The Leading Edge of Budgeting: Investment-based Budgeting
the problems it solves, the concepts and process, examples, and results,
from SmartPros' Financial Management Network (30 min)

Story: The Annual Set-up (Jan 2003)
also available in a government version
How a traditional budget process sets organizations up to fail, with client expectations that exceed resources.

Story: Budgeting Is a Waste!
a short story on how standing up for the truth broke the cycle of misery and failure

Story: Operational Planning (Oct 2004)
why operational planning, budgeting, and rate setting must be a single, integrated process.

Collection of stories: "Budget Wisdom"
(originally published in CIO Magazine)
a series of all-too-realistic snippets of corporate life that trace their root cause to financial governance processes

Essay: Activity-based Budgeting
what is ABB, how is it different from ABC, and where does FullCost fit

Executive summary: Demand management
best practices in resource governance (priority setting, demand management, project intake), and the benefits of getting it right

Provocative essay: Managing expectations
systemic planning instead of lectures, hurdles, and bureaucracy

Story: Managing Expectations (Sep 2003)
More on how a traditional budget process leads clients to expect more than can be delivered.

Provocative essay: Unfunded mandates
what to do when executives expect something for nothing

Essay: Do More With Less -- NOT!
how to solve the problem of finite resources and infinite demands.

Story: Oh, One More Thing (March 2002)
Unfunded mandates -- the business absolutely needs more, but you haven't got the resources to deliver.

Story: Client-driven Portfolio Management (Out On a Limb Alone) (Mar 2004)
You're expected to defend the budget that's really there to benefit your clients, and blamed when you don't get enough.

Story: Attempting Portfolio Management (Mar 2005)
Why a shift in the budget process is prerequisite to dynamic portfolio management.

Video: Do More With Less -- NOT!
a quick analysis of the absurd command to magically become more efficient due to a budget cut (7 min)

Case Study: A Budget Aligned with Expectations
a straightforward solution to budgets out of synch with business needs, "do more with less," expectations exceeding resources, lack of perceived value of your function, and more (from an IT department)

Story: Take It Out of Hide (Sep 2002)
budgets have to be cut, but clients go on expecting all the same deliverables

Story: The Ax is Falling (May 2003)
budget cuts without negotiating reduced expectations set you up to fail across the board

Story: Another Cut (May 2005)
what staff need to do to arm the boss with data to defend the organization during budget cuts

Executive summary: Strategic cost cutting
cutting a function's budget (and perhaps headcount) by selecting what's worth buying (versus traditional budget cuts and caps on headcount)

Case Study: A Budget Aligned with Expectations
a straightforward solution to budgets out of synch with business needs, "do more with less," expectations exceeding resources, lack of perceived value of your function, and more (from an IT department)

Case Study: Cost Transparency Enables Strategic Cost Cutting
Riverside County IT cut costs without risking the whole business. (2009)

Provocative essay: Headcount caps
caps actually drive costs up, not down!

Provocative essay: Efficiency studies
how to select a vendor of efficiency studies

Story: You Cost Too Much (January 2006)
internal IT can appear too expensive if you're comparing apples to oranges

Analysis: Benefits of a service catalog
it's not an end in itself, but it's a powerful means

Executive summary: What makes for a good service catalog
documenting the organization's products/services to clarify clients' expectations and staff's accountabilities

Essay: SLAs and internal contracts
forming clear agreements for services and projects, the basis for accountability, teamwork, and resource management

Essay: IT Financial Management and the Service Lifecycle
how the pieces of the puzzle come together.
The Forum, itSMF e-newsletter, January 10, 2008; with Nick Schneider

"Now, we understand what goes into every rate; we can explain it and look our customers square in the eye when we do."

Greg Stoddard CTO, Riverside County, CA

Executive summary: Service catalog with rates
why a service catalog with rates is valuable, and why the process of defining it should be integrated with business and budget planning

Essay: Service-based costing
this simple but powerful concept could make a huge difference this budget cycle

Essay: The difference between ABC and second-generation cost models
accuracy, and effects on entrepreneurship

Research report: Second-generation Cost Models
going beyond ABC, new product/service cost models improve accuracy and encourage entrepreneurship

Story: You Cost Too Much (January 2006)
internal IT can appear too expensive if you're comparing apples to oranges

Story: Chargebacks Are Killing Us (July 2006)
how implementing chargebacks can make things worse if you don't have the right tools and methods

Provocative essay: Chargebacks
if you go in with the wrong objectives in mind, chargebacks become an administrative nightmare and may induce a client backlash

Provocative essay: "Show-backs"
the limitations and risks of show-backs

Provocative essay: Allocations
how to turn a controversial nuisance into a powerful governance process

Story: Our IT Allocation is Too Small! (December 2006)
how to turn the tables and get your internal customers defending your budget

Executive summary: Accounting in internal market economics
applying principles of market economics inside organizations adds a new and powerful twist to financial reporting

Essay: Planning versus accounting systems
tools designed for planning, budget negotiations, and rate setting are quite different from those designed for tracking

Essay: Categories of Financial Systems
a simple framework of available tools and methods

Independent research report: IT as a "Business Within a Business": Vision, Financial Processes, and Systems
the difference between planning tools and actuals (accounting) systems, and analysis of planning software products.
Enterprise Management Associates, August, 2012

Essay: Where To Build Your Product/Service Cost Model
within your planning tool or your actuals-tracking (internal invoicing) system?

Analysis: Buy versus make
why it's better to buy a package than develop your own spreadsheets

Case Study: A Budget Aligned with Expectations
a straightforward solution to budgets out of synch with business needs, "do more with less," expectations exceeding resources, lack of perceived value of your function, and more (from an IT department)

Case Study: We've Already Got Budget Spreadsheets, Don't We?
Sonoco Products Co. discovered the value of a fully developed budgeting and product/service costing tool. (2009)

Video: Overview of FullCost
a brief, factual video that explains the FullCost software and method, where it fits, and how it compares to competitors (12 min)

Details on the FullCost tool and method
business plan, cost model, investment-based budget, and catalog with rates

Executive summary: Funding innovation
how to keep up with the pace of change despite the pressures of daily business

Story: Begging for Infrastructure (November 2005)
if clients pay for infrastructure as part of they're projects, they'll think they own it

Article: The Effective Way to Fund Innovation
without resources, even the best ideas stall. Here are three common errors and a glimpse of the best way to fund infrastructure and innovation.
Smart Enterprise Magazine, December, 2009

Provocative essay: Who owns your infrastructure?
the way you get funding for infrastructure may antagonize clients and disempower you

Story: Eating Your Seed Corn (June 2002)
Unrealistic client expectations force you to sacrifice essential training and infrastructure development.

Analysis: Outsourcing
how to ensure that vendors work for your shareholders

Story: The Outsourcing Shell Game (August 2005)
how to fairly compare internal IT staff to outsourcing, apples to apples

Story: You Cost Too Much (January 2006)
internal IT can appear too expensive if you're comparing apples to oranges

Column: Cloud Changes the Way You Interact with the Business
why cloud computing is forcing IT organizations to do business in a businesslike manner.
originally published in Smart Enterprise Exchange, June, 2013