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

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 ask why Silicon Valley firms rarely appear in Beyond Budgeting case studies; Bjarte posits that these companies excel at technology innovation but fear management innovation, sometimes reinforced by IPO-focused CFOs, though being public is not a true barrier (Many Beyond Budgeting adopters are listed on Wall Street.)

He explains Beyond Budgeting can improve performance in both good and tough times and cites Handelsbanken’s long-term stability. The discussion covers Morningstar’s self-management and the need for enterprise-wide coherence, then Haier’s radical micro-enterprise model and rapid evolution.

Finally, Bjarte details Equinor’s (formerly Statoil) beyond budgeting journey since 2005 via “Ambition to Action,” integrating strategy, risk, actions/forecasting, indicators, and HR with a 50/50 split between “what” and “how,” emphasizing transparency, event-driven cadence, decentralized ownership, and holistic performance evaluation.

Key topics and timestamps

• 00:00 Welcome
• 01:05 Why Silicon Valley Lags in Management Innovation
• 04:11 Public Markets and Budgets
• 04:53 Boom Bust and Stability
• 06:40 Morningstar and Self Management
• 08:48 Haier Radical Micro Enterprises
• 13:00 Equinor Beyond Budgeting Origins
• 16:32 Ambition to Action Framework
• 20:11 Alignment Cadence and Transparency
• 25:37 Holistic Performance Evaluation
• 28:15 Wrap Up and Conclusion

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

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, Bjarte discusses David Lloyd Clubs’ Beyond Budgeting shift starting in October 2019 and how it helped during the 2020 pandemic through greater local autonomy and faster, more continuous funding decisions. He explains the core change of separating budget purposes into distinct processes for target setting, forecasting (as non-binding forecasts), and resource allocation, with more local decision-making and a revised cadence beyond annual budgets. Bogsnes addresses budget gaming by isolating it to target setting and using relative performance and transparency to encourage improvement while avoiding naming-and-shaming, emphasizing holistic performance evaluation when measures are absolute.

The conversation also covers beyond budgeting relevance to the public sector via a pilot in Sogndal Municipality, Norway, and TDR Capital’s role as a private equity owner encouraging portfolio companies to adopt beyond budgeting, including examples like Stonegate and BPP.

Key topics and timestamps

• 00:00 Welcome
• 01:06 Pandemic Autonomy Lessons
• 02:54 Separating Budget Purposes
• 06:11 Funding Autonomy And Cadence
• 07:28 Stopping Gaming With Benchmarks
• 12:31 Transparency Without Shaming
• 14:24 All 12 Principles In Practice
• 15:05 Beyond Budgeting In Government
• 20:04 Collaboration And Member Impact
• 22:45 TDR Capital’s Playbook
• 25:41 How To Start The Journey
• 27:15 Private Equity Differentiator
• 28:11 Wrap Up and Conclusion

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