Annyce Davis

Davis Technology Consulting

Annual Planning and Budgeting Need to Die

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It’s August. It’s also budget and roadmap season. I’ve already been planning for next year for a couple of months. You can’t make this up.

Like most leaders in large organizations, I’ve spent plenty of time in planning conversations. We build roadmaps, forecast budgets, negotiate headcount, debate priorities, and try to make reasonable decisions about what we’re going to need six, twelve, sometimes eighteen months from now.

There is nothing inherently wrong with doing that. Companies need a strategy. Finance needs some idea of where the money is going. Teams need enough direction to make decisions without renegotiating priorities every week.

The problem is what happens after the plan is approved.

Because between now and next August, a lot is going to change.

Customer expectations will shift. New technology will become viable. Some projects will turn out to be harder than expected. Others will turn out to be unnecessary. New opportunities will emerge that we haven’t even considered yet.

And somehow, despite all of that new information, we’ll still be talking about whether we delivered what we said we would deliver back when we were sitting here in August.

I’ve started to wonder whether annual planning and budgeting, at least the way most large organizations practice them, need to die.

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Jetpack Compose and the Speed of Thinking

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I wasn’t excited about Jetpack Compose. There. I said it.

When it first came out, it felt like Flutter in a different outfit. Kotlin instead of Dart. Same declarative energy. And look, I didn’t have anything against Flutter. Once you get comfortable with it you can build a solid multiplatform app.

I just didn’t feel the need to adopt something new. XML worked. Views worked. We were shipping.

And then there was the terminology. <insert multiple facepalms> mutableStateOf. derivedStateOf.

It sounded like I needed an encyclopedia just to build a button. I wasn’t eager to relearn concepts I already understood — definitely a lot of “get off my lawn” going on.

Back in 2017 at Google I/O, I ran into Dave Burke. He was leading Android at the time. I asked him what he thought about Flutter. Was it the future? Should we all be paying closer attention?

He didn’t tip his hand. But he mentioned that declarative UI had clear advantages. I remember nodding politely. It was Dave after all. But I wasn’t fully sold.

Years later, however, that comment made a lot more sense.

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Google I/O 2025: What busy Execs need to know

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Android continues to expand beyond phones into cars, wearables, and more, now reaching over billions of screens. Google I/O 2025 introduced key updates focused on making experiences adaptive across devices and integrating advanced AI capabilities. These advancements are particularly relevant to how executives should think about future work. Here’s a look at my key highlights from this year’s event.

Key takeaways

✨ AI is the new standard. AI is no longer a unique selling point. It is now a foundational part of modern applications. The focus has shifted to how we can leverage AI to enhance productivity and create more intelligent product experiences.

💠 Adaptive is a necessity, not a feature. Building adaptive experiences that work seamlessly across Android’s diverse hardware is no longer optional. Android 16 is pushing developers to adopt an “adaptive-first” mindset.

🤖 The rise of the AI Agent – We’re moving beyond simple, reactive AI assistants. They are now proactive, autonomous AI Agents that can handle complex, multi-step problems and workflows on their own. Think Skynet; so, make sure you add a “please” to your prompts.

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