Last week I listened in on an agency conference call, watched the streaming web feed, and followed along using the powerpoint presentation, on the new agency planning and budgeting process. Fascinating stuff :) and it goes along with the matrix team management style.

We will comply.

Then today my DD told me that starting in FY04, all of our base budgeting will be compared to our annual spending plan...monthly! This includes all categories, including travel and training. In other words, we will need to match our spending plans with our programs (so far so good), but the difficulty arises in trying to come up with and then match monthly spending plans. Come on, this is research and it's so difficult to project the myriad of things that can go right, as well as go wrong, in any project that involves uncertainty (after all, if we knew the answers, it wouldn't be called research!). So, what do we do? Take a deep breath and just do it. Oh, by the way...this is due by COB next Tuesday!!!

So, will I have time to think about anything else? Is this now going to be the life of a program manager? As usual, we'll see how it all pans out.