Past speaking engagements
Budget talks
people actually stay for
Activity-based budgeting rarely gets a reputation for being interesting. These sessions have been trying to change that, one department at a time.
Where we've presented
Since Pesudavil started in 2023, speaking engagements have ranged from municipal finance departments to post-secondary business programs in and around Markham.
Most sessions run 60 to 90 minutes and are designed for mixed audiences — staff who work with budgets daily sit alongside managers who approve them but rarely dig into the numbers.
The format stays practical: participants work through a condensed ABB exercise using a fictional department, then apply the same logic to their own context. Questions are built into the session, not tacked on at the end.
Regional municipality finance team
A half-day workshop for budget analysts transitioning from line-item to activity-based models. Focus was on cost driver identification and how to document assumptions that hold up to audit review.
Public sectorContinuing ed business certificate program
Guest lecture series integrated into a corporate finance module at a Markham-area college. Students worked through a live ABB scenario with a simulated service department and overhead pool.
EducationMid-size logistics company offsite
Operations managers needed to understand how ABB differs from traditional department budgets when activities cut across multiple functions. The session used their actual service list as source material.
Private sectorTopics covered across sessions
Each engagement is shaped by its audience, but these themes come up consistently because they're where most organizations actually get stuck.
What an activity actually is
Most teams confuse activities with departments or functions. Getting this distinction right is the difference between a budget that reveals cost drivers and one that just mirrors the org chart.
Resource consumption logic
How time, equipment, and shared services get traced to the activities that actually use them — not split evenly or assigned by headcount.
Variance without the spreadsheet panic
Reading budget-to-actual gaps in an ABB context means asking whether volume changed, not assuming someone overspent.
Building the first ABB model
- Mapping activities before assigning costs
- Choosing cost drivers that reflect real usage
- Handling shared services fairly
When ABB fits — and when it doesn't
Not every organization benefits equally. Sessions cover the structural and cultural conditions that make ABB worth the transition effort, alongside honest scenarios where a simpler model is the better call. Participants leave with a practical checklist, not a sales pitch for the methodology.
Interested in hosting a session?
Formats range from 45-minute lunch sessions to half-day workshops. Reach out through the contact page to discuss what fits your team.