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Clarify metrics like Cost per CM in Approvals

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Clarify metrics like Cost per CM in Approvals

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Some of the regions I worked with were surprised that Cost per CM was going to be a factor in approvals.  This makes sense, especially with new function codes and reduced corps sizes but I don't think we expressed this expectation to ED's.  We need ensure regions are aware of all metrics and data impacting approval in advance.

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I have never been more clear on how my regions' expenses are aligned to strategy. Even though we have many improvements we want to make to the non-standardized proposal, it is a win that we are able to understand the link between strategy and investments in clearer ways than ever before.

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The actual budgeting process felt messy to regional users

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The actual budgeting process felt messy to regional users

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In addition to going through so much change within their teams (particularly for those in program pilot), there was so much new content and systems for regions in the new expense model to need to learn and use and I have informally heard from some that it felt very messy, which i'm not surprised to hear. We MUST make it a priority for budgeting in the new economic model in FY24 to be experienced positively... the budgeting process and tools should feel clear, streamlined, and as simplifed / efficient as possible, with much more robust trainings & resources than we were able to create this year.

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Ignite costs ready at start of budgeting would be ideal

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Ignite costs ready at start of budgeting would be ideal

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Would be ideal in future to have Ignite costs for regions ready at the start of regional budgeting.

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Cost center-level assumptions in the larger targets were not intended to be cost center targets

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Cost center-level assumptions in the larger targets were not intended to be cost center targets

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ED Managers did not seem to understand that the cost center level assumptions used to create each ED Manager's FTE targets were not intended to be communicated to regions as individual cost-center targets. This caused a lot of confusion and angst among many EDs. In the future, P&A can / should help ED Managers understand what the FTE targets are and are not... if we are brought into the conversations that ELT is having about these things.

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I am proud of how we (a lot of this was Jeff) listened to regional feedback and evolved our processes and policies accordingly. This was true with the non-standardized guidance, the timelines for Lab and program prototype regions, and many other components.

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While the reserves policy and hiring controls made impacts here I still get the feeling that these regions had more freedom to help shape their reality if they could articulate the why and get sustainability to yellow in comparison to the more rigid economic model regions. Seems like an equity flag. And will be much harder for these regions when they experience the rigidity in the new model in future years.

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Goes without saying that this made everything more difficult. I'm worried that teams will attribute all pain points in the new model to the new model as opposed to the new model with hiring controls layered on top. And since this wasn't crystal clear at the onset of budgeting (or if it was my EDs weren't aware or didn't internalize what this meant) this led to pain points later in the process.

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we had clear policies in place for reserves and several of my regions should have been able to draw down on reserves but couldn't because of the org-wide landscape or FTE targets or both... so it felt a little bit like they were halfway into the new model, but not really with any of the new budgeting expense model perks.

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I think it makes sense from the national team perspective why we couldn't change green fellows or Ignite assignments during budgeting, but some of my regions (in both new expense model and legacy) got into a situation where they felt like they couldn't afford it with their other priorities and would have made a different decision if given the full option for budgeting.

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I think it was unclear to the AIR regions how they should be orienting in the absence of SIF and baseline and operating in the new model. at one point an email went to the EDs saying 3-5% reduction in direct expenses, but that was no where in the approval rubric or non-standardized proposal process, so we were asking them to meet a bar with that plus FTE counts, plus innovate on alumni functions. It was a lot at once to try to create an approvable budget.

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not having baseline was a win for these regions!

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in the short term and the timeline we had this year, the focus group for the new expense model served it's purpose to disseminate info, but in the future we need to have more robust training and comms on the non-standardized and standardized costs, best practices for non-standardized cost proposals, robust examples and some sort of cap on non-standardized proposals as I had many regions come in WAY over what we expected and it ended up being a lot of time for something we really never could have approved.

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I think the committee and those that gave feedback did a great job coming up with this list on a very short timeline, and it covered a lot of what we needed.

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I felt like there was not good communication between what was sent to RFEs and us not knowing that info. On multiple occasions an ED asked me for support with something related to budgeting that I had no idea what was happening because I wasn't included in the comms. This is very frustrating because at some point the ED is going to find me unhelpful and irrelevant if I do not know the latest.