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Our Agile Tales
Our Agile Tales
[Episode 7] Beyond Budgeting: 25 Years of Management Innovation
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Welcome back to Our Agile Tales as we continue our conversation with Bjarte Bogsnes, exploring case studies from his latest book, This Is Beyond Budgeting. The book distills nearly three decades of experience challenging traditional budgeting, targets, and control-based management.
In this episode, we discuss with Bjarte how target setting evolved at Equinor from 2005 onward through separating target setting, forecasting, and resource allocation, including allowing indicators without targets and emphasizing team-set, often more ambitious goals and relative “reality targets” versus peers. Bjarte says Beyond Budgeting adoption spans many industries, is stronger in Europe, and is equally relevant in the public sector, citing Norway’s NAV contact centers eliminating cost budgets and a 12,000-inhabitant municipality using self-managed teams, continuous decisions, and stakeholder alignment while still submitting an external “budget.” He argues budgets embed distrust and predictability assumptions, making true agility impossible without Beyond Budgeting, challenges absolute annual financial targets, and advocates relative targets, holistic evaluation, and common incentives. Finally, he describes surveys by Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company linking Beyond Budgeting to benefits like higher sales and leading financial planning practices.
Key topics and timestamps
- 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
- 01:06 Evolving Targets at Equinor
- 03:39 Who Adopts Beyond Budgeting
- 05:14 Public Sector Breakthroughs
- 05:41 NAV Pilot No Cost Budgets
- 07:10 Municipality Self Managed Teams
- 10:00 Funding Constraints Not Earmarks
- 14:24 Why Budgets Block Agility
- 18:24 No Budget No Targets
- 22:09 Forecasting and Ambition
- 23:28 Consulting Surveys and Benefits
- 27:16 Wrap Up and Next Episode
About Bjarte Bogsnes
Bjarte Bogsnes is Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table, a former global finance executive, and a leading thinker in management innovation. He is the author of Implementing Beyond Budgeting and This Is Beyond Budgeting, showing how organizations can replace rigid, calendar-driven systems with models built on trust, transparency, and adaptability — creating companies that are both more responsive and more human.
Follow Bjarte at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjarte-bogsnes-41557910/
Music: https://www.purple-planet.com
Visit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about