Welcome to my newsletter “Behind the Numbers”.

A fortnightly newsletter where I share my Finance tips for Operational Leaders and their teams. I may also share an interesting sporting stat along the way.

For those of you who know my story you’ll get why numbers and sport are so much part of who I am.

One tip: How to manage the “Budget Bucket”

“I can’t predict my costs with any level of confidence.”

Does this sound familiar?

The more murky the lines of budget ownership, the more likely your people are going to talk at the higher “bucket” level. When you throw a lot of inputs into the same bucket, it is impossible to predict what is going to happen in the future.

To remove this budget band-aid you need to breakdown your budgets and allocate them to budget owners. In my experience, involving your front line people and allowing them to manage a budget for what’s in their control works best.

Then ask your people:

“What contributed to your success?”

“What obstacles did you encounter?”

When using data to drive budget performance, the “gold” lies in the analysis.

Analysis is most effective when your people can look back on an experience and see something from a different perspective.

You can download the tip sheet here.

One sporting stat

Forbes recently released a list of the 15 highest paid players at the FIFA Women’s World Cup. We are at the Quarter Finals stage and only three players from the list remain in the tournament. One of the major reasons is the USA were knocked out. They claimed 11 of the 15 spots on the list.

Who is left? Alexia Putellas from Spain (US$4M), Chloe Kelly from England (US$1.2M) and Sam Kerr from Australia (US$1.2M).

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