Alight Introduces Planning Maturity Curve at Budgeting and Forecasting Events in 2011
Alight LLC, developers of the industry-leading Alight Planning financial planning and reporting software, today announced that Rand Heer, Alight CEO and founder and architect of the original Pillar software, is introducing a new training session entitled: The Planning Maturity Curve: Where Are You? Where Do You Want to Be? Alight is set to present at The American Strategic Management Institute (ASMI) Trainings in six major cities in 2011 including San Diego, Orlando, Dallas, San Jose, Atlanta, and Boston.
Alight’s presentation analyzes the five levels of planning maturity—no planning, seat of the pants, budgeting, forecasting and Agile Planning—based on an adaptation of the Capability Maturity Model first developed at Carnegie Mellon University. Not surprisingly, the goals, processes and requirements for each type of planning vary substantially including effectiveness in resource management and impact on decision making.
The training session includes a company case study of Agile Planning™, a new methodology for real-time collaboration and scenario analysis now being used by many organizations for overhauling their stagnant and over politicized planning processes. Attendees walk away with a framework to assess where their organization currently resides on the planning maturity curve and how best to take their planning processes up the curve.
“The initial feedback from the ASMI Budgeting and Forecasting Conference in Dallas was very positive,” Heer said. “Attendees felt that the interactive simulation which included volunteers from the workshop audience was not only more fun, but would also be easier to remember than facts and figures. Several FP&A attendees walked away excited to get going with ‘Agile Planning’ at their workplace to improve the quality of meetings with line managers and make better decisions faster.”
Try Muller, Program Director, remarked, “Here at the Performance Institute we aim to provide targeted, high-quality trainings, so we are quite selective when it comes to partnering with sponsors. The feedback from our attendees in 2010 for Alight was positive. Alight’s presentations feature real-world case studies and provide our attendees with a look at best practices for implementing rolling forecasts and concrete ideas for how best to move planning processes up the planning maturity curve. We are so pleased to have Alight established as our sole sponsor for the 2011 Budgeting and Forecasting Summits and Rolling Forecast Trainings.”
ASMI is one of the nation’s most innovative training providers, combining market research and industry insight to deliver experiences and tools to inspire leaders and grow businesses. For more information and a list of upcoming ASMI training events, visit http://www.ASMIweb.com.
To learn more about the upcoming presentations in 2011 that will feature The Planning Maturity Curve: Where Are You? Where Do You Want to Be?, visit http://www.alightplanning.com/company/events.
About Alight LLC
Alight LLC’s Alight Planning is a true driver-based financial planning and reporting software package that automates complex business modeling for more accurate strategic plans, revenue projections, budgets and rolling forecasts. Its unique architectures and easy-to-use interfaces provide finance staff the power they need to build complex driver-based planning models, while delivering traditional budgeting and planning structures such as line item detail, integrated financial statements and multiple-user security. Cost-effective and IT-independent, Alight Planning is affordable and easily deployed by Fortune 500 business units, as well as midmarket companies with limited IT resources. Alight has over 200 customers including Kaiser Permanente, Pittsburgh Mercy, the Swan and Dolphin Resort at Disney World and Verizon Wireless. For more information about Alight Planning, visit http://www.AlightPlanning.com or call 800-960-7717.
