File Library

For planning and forecasting never has the old adage “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” been more true. To make sure you are working with the most accurate information, the information has to be right. In every industry there is always talk about businesses needing to stay competitive. The only way to do this is through informed decisions and agile business practices. These only come about with quality forecasts that shape future outcomes and the ability to immediately react to changing events. This is why many companies are looking for alternatives to annual budgets.

A rolling forecast is a more fluid approach to planning and forecasting. You will always find change happening in your business, and even the smallest amount of it can impact on your numbers, focus, plans, etc. With a rolling forecast, you can emphasize the forward movement of the business, because it is always looking ahead 12 to 18 months. You avoid the cliff event like end-of-year with a continuous process that combines the traditional plan and forecast.

In this session, Juan Porter, President and Founder of TopDown Consulting, will discuss the ins and outs of rolling forecasts. Using world examples, he will also define a few methods to make your rolling forecasts effective, letting them work for you instead of the other way around, and how to take advantage of advanced methods and driver-based models. The session will cover:

- Transitioning Traditional Forecasting to Rolling Forecasts—an overview of the differences between traditional and rolling forecast methods, highlighting the dynamic business planning abilities that come with adopting a rolling forecast that allow you to look both backward and forward, providing a richer view for better decision-making. Key focus areas include:
o Traditional Planning Process
o Traditional Forecasting Process
o What is a Rolling Forecast?
o Why Rolling Forecasts?
- Implementing Rolling Forecasts—a basic rundown of the right questions to ask, the key players needed, and hardships and challenges you may encounter as well as key considerations in moving your business towards a more proactive approach through rolling forecasts. Key focus areas include:
o Initial Considerations
o Key Questions to Ask
o Decisions and Criteria
o Technology, Process, and Change
o Challenges to Implementing

- Advanced Methods in Rolling Forecasts—demonstrate the value of using driver-based models, including how to understand the relationships and dependencies in your data and how to create the drivers that will improve the accuracy and flexibility or your forecast. Key focus areas include:
o Making Rolling Forecasts Effective
o Driver-based Models
o Simplicity Through Drivers
o Employee Based Drivers
o Employee Based Advanced Drivers

- Understanding Your Forecast—how to analyze your variances, answer questions, and identify assumptions and dependencies by tracking and storing comments/explanations and look at various reports: Actual vs. Budget, the use charts to visually identify trends and outliers, and waterfall reports to look at KPI and reporting metrics. Key focus areas include:
o Why is there a variance—e.g.,
• Why did a project cost more or less than anticipated?
• Was it budgeted for correctly?
• Were objectives met?
• Did we get the expected results?
• Does a positive variance mean money saved or a failure to act?
• Does a negative variance indicate a change in plans, a management failure, or an unrealistic budget?
o Working with reports
o Leveraging graphs and charts to spot trends. Bar, Line, Pie, Bubble, Scatter
o Identifying trends, contribution, and outliers.
o Waterfall reports
• KPI and reporting metric

- Beyond the Numbers—go beyond the numbers and discuss the less obvious aspects of rolling forecasts, providing general guidelines to understanding your models in both specifics and the big picture.