Chain Saws and Scalpels

An all too common practice both in the Federal government and the commercial sector when faced with shrinking budgets is to simply make across the board cuts. In other words, we take out our chain saw and just reduce funding for all programs by the same percent. If we were to ask ourselves if all programs as equally important to the organization, I propose that 9 out of 10 of us would answer "No". So why do we continue to use our chain saws? The answer is that it's easier and avoids political battles.

While certainly easier, the chain saw method is likely to produce inferior results to the scalpel method. With the scalpel method we consider the benefit of a given program relative to other programs along with the funds required to achieve the benefit. In doing so we will likely find that some programs should be cut even more significantly, others not cut at all and even some should receive increased funding.

So this all sounds good, but how do we handle the associated politics and use our scalpels efficiently? There are approaches that enable organizations to efficiently reach their priorities, gain buy-in among stakeholders and selectively allocate their funds. Organizations such as NASA and the Bureau of Land Management are such organizations and they are beginning to reap the rewards.

I'd imagine that any of us who plan to have surgery would much rather see our surgeon pull out a scalpel than a chainsaw. Let's give our budgeting the same care.