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What To Do When Your Planning Budget Gets Cut

October 28, 2009

budget cuts

With stories of budget cuts (both in the public and private sectors) filling the business news, it has become a reality in the recession that in order to plan for the future, agencies and organizations must work with less resources. But how do you plan on a tight budget? Below, we’ve got some things for you to focus on.

Focus on your core outcomes that your citizens/customer must have

When your agency is sitting down to determine your strategic plan in a recession, you must first decide what your stakeholders must have. Without stretching your already thin budget too much, get a feel for what counts most to your people. If you don’t have the resources to perform a formal survey, create a weighted grid of your most pressing issues and have your managers vote on which are most important to their constituents.

Get clear on what is really your core and what you are best at

Look to your current strategic plan: what are your core competencies? Focusing on these will almost always bring you the greatest return. If you have to drop something, one way to base your decision on which to cut would be to forgo initiatives that fall outside of your strengths so that you can still focus on areas in which your organization or agency excels at.

Figure out how to work across dept lines to get more done

Cooperation is key during a recession. Infighting and political battles only drain resources, as does duplication of services. When budgets get cut, some merging of department resources may be necessary. Who within your organization has a reputation for fostering cooperation? They can be a great asset in heading up cooperative initiatives. Which departments are known not to work well together? These will require special attention.

If you have good stuff in your plan, then push the initiatives out a few years

When all else has been done to stretch your budget, there still may be initiatives that you believe shouldn’t be cut but you just don’t have the budget to make them happen right now. Delaying them or stretching the due date may be your solution- and at your next strategy meeting you can re-visit these initiatives you may find that the budget to implement them has surfaced.