Skinny Finance
“Skinny Finance” refers to an approach of institutional finance and business services that emphasizes customer service, elimination of unnecessary tasks and automation of routine tasks within a financial control environment. It is also marked by a return of budget control to the budget managers. It is called “Skinny” because it creates an atmosphere in which the functions of the Finance Department are “Skinny” with respect to their impact on program managers. The instructional services conduct business in the institution with very little impact and influence from the organization’s Department of Finance. It is a program that is rigorous on systems and gentle on people.
Have you had the feeling that “you cannot fight city hall”? In your organization, is the Department of Finance that monolithic governing body that seems to stop your business activity with every small variation in transactions? Does it always seem that “the auditor said…” and you are barred from completing your business? These are signs that your Finance Department needs a new skinny culture.
The heart of Skinny Finance is that a transformed Department of Finance concentrates its education, experience, talents and time on perfecting the systems by which services are delivered to the end users and they step back from the transactional analysis that tends to slow the institution’s business. There will always be a system of checks and balances provided by the leadership of the Department of Finance but those systems can be established to routinely process transactions without the excruciating level of review offered by the traditional transaction-based finance.
Do you want to simply order a book? Do you want to have your book delivered quickly without endless layers of pre-approval, approval and Über-approval? Then Skinny Finance is a culture you will want to evaluate.
Skinny Finance borrows from the lessons learned by the author throughout his educational administrative career, backed with research. One of the professional disciplines learned along the way and incorporated into this new financial culture is Lean Construction Scheduling.
“The goals of lean thinking redefine performance against three dimensions of perfection: (1) a uniquely custom product, (2) delivered instantly, with (3) nothing in stores. This is an ideal that maximizes value and minimizes waste. The goals demand a new way to coordinate action, one that is applicable to industries far removed from manufacturing.” (Howell and Ballard, 1998)
This skinny book about Skinny Finance is a quick start to planning for a new culture of end product business services delivery without requiring the budget managers to also be finance experts. This new culture assumes that budget managers know how to best operate a department and that finance knows how best to establish the systems by which services are delivered to the operating departments.
Skinny Finance breaks the log jams that often slow educational administration to an excruciating crawl.
Reference:
Howell, G.H. and G. Ballard (1998), “Implementing Lean Construction: Understanding and Action”. Proceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, Guaruja, Brazil. Available at www.iglc.net Also Available at: http://www.leanconstruction.org/pdf/HowellAndBallard.pdf. Accessed April 18, 2008 |
