Budgeting Process and Approach: Advice and Insight From Your Peers

Mal Mead, Chief Information Officer

Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold

Werner Gehrke, Information Technology Director Archer Norris

Maryanna Bell, IT Director

Steefel, Levitt & Weiss

ILTA Northern California Regional Event

San Francisco, September 27, 2006

An example of a bad budget

Don’t let the tail wag the dog

Strategic Plan

Budget

Your Budget Should Reflect Your Strategic Goals

Maybe your firm’s got a overall strategic planMaybe NotMaybe you should just address improving your department’s performance via the budget

“Gap” AnalysisUses a graphical representation to highlight SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)

Compares firm’s performance to previous year, other firms, or the state of technology

Focus on graphics and on “gaps” makes it easy to get the attention of upper management

Also a good tool for sharing evaluation with IT staff

Network

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Security

Backup Plan

Disaster Plan

Software Distribution

Network Mgmt

Backbone

Wide Area Network

Server reliability

Network OS

Firm Last Year

Firm This Year

Legal Industry

Other CriteriaDesktop

OSPCsNotebooksPrinters

ApplicationsWPDMSCRMEmailIntranetExtranetInternet Lit SupportLegal Research

More CriteriaAdministration

FinancialTime EntryBudgetingConflictsDocketingHRRecords

CommunicationTelephoneVoice MailVideo ConferencingRemote Access

But wait, there’s more…Service

Help DeskTrainingStaff QualityVendor RelationsBudget ManagementProject Management

39 total criteria, plus some I would add

PDAsMore variations on Practice Support

Going from graphs to numbers

One more thing: can you walk it like you talk it?

Do your people resources match your budgetary resourcesDo you have a portfolio of projects that you can actually accomplish in the coming year? Should you break down projects over multiple years?

Major Projects 2000

0

5

10

0 5 10Technical Difficulty

Val

ue

to F

irm

Office 2000

Blackberry

Network Mgmt

Voice Mail

Time Entry

Budgeting System

Windows 2000

0

5

10

0 5 10Technical Difficulty

Val

ue

to F

irm

Why plan?Allows you to set the agenda by defining the categories you want to evaluate and budget for Begins to develop a culture of project management – the notion that everything can’t be done at once, but that over time you can get thereKeeps management focused

Example of “Big Firm” Budgeting