Budgeting a thing of the past for Statoil. By John Stokdyk

Thanks for your input Gordon. Actually my plan is to tackle the theory of budgeting and beyond in a follow-up article.

I'm pretty certain Bjarte did his research and is aware of the academic theories, but he showed a real flair as a speaker for throwing out provocative soundbites, eg: "Traditional cost budgeting is a one-eyed view of the world..." "In the old system, the rotten eggs were winners, because they knew how to manipulate the system...." and budget figures "riding the elevator" up and down between the board and line managers.

By sticking pretty closely to the content of his talk, I aimed to capture his almost punk rock-like distain for traditional methods and illustrate how "blowing up the budget" affected a specific company - Statoil.

From the positive responses to the piece, it looks as though ordinary managers are more interested in reading entertaining, first-hand accounts of business processes than they are in reading up on the academic theory.

Of course, in an ideal world the two go together. I am just getting ready to tackle the theory article. Are there any thinkers, articles or concepts you would urge me to include?

Expanding on your own views would also be welcome. As I mentioned, we really appreciate feedback, and I'm looking forward to a continuing discussion around the topic of budgeting.

Regards
John Stokdyk
Technology editor
AccountingWEB.co.uk