Category: Finance Technology & Tools

Practical tips, frameworks, and tools that make Finance work smarter.

  • Hope Is Not a Method (Not in Medicine and Certainly not in Systems)

    The title of this post is borrowed intentionally. Years ago, I read Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America’s Army by General Gordon R. Sullivan (with Michael V. Harper). I found the idea compelling. When colleagues—and especially direct reports—would start in with “I hope…”, I would hand out the book.…

  • AI, “Faux Expertise,” and the Real Threshold of Knowing

    We were in the middle of replacing an enterprise-wide application. As expected, requirements gathering was uneven. Some departments came prepared—with workflows, documentation, and a clear understanding of how their function operated within the broader system. Others arrived with little more than fragments. That imbalance slowed everything: scoping stalled, dependencies remained unclear, and constructing a credible…

  • AI Isn’t Stealing Knowledge. It’s Institutionalizing It.

    A recent Wall Street Journal article argued that workers worried about AI taking their jobs may be missing an even bigger danger — cue the escalation that sells headlines — AI systems absorbing institutional knowledge and shifting control away from individuals. The fear is real. Surveys show it across industries. Not just routine workers. Knowledge…

  • The KPI Fallacy — From Journal Entries to Lines of Code

    How do you measure the performance of your finance team? Time to close the books? Forecast accuracy? DSO? Working capital turns? All reasonable. Now imagine this KPI presented at your next board meeting: “We evaluated Finance based on the number of journal entries posted this month.” It sounds absurd. In fact, you might argue the…

  • Design Principles in the World of AI

    When “One Hour for Requirements” Tells You Everything You Need to Know I was invited to a one-hour meeting. The invitation said we were going to “go over requirements” for a new system. We were asked to come prepared with examples of what we do today: reports we rely on, reports we don’t, pain points,…