{"id":140775,"date":"2025-02-08T11:32:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T15:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=140775"},"modified":"2025-02-10T13:02:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T17:02:15","slug":"business-projections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Business Projections Don&#8217;t Accurately Tell the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Are business projections always accurate? How often does the market change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Business projections are a way for companies to predict future income and performance based on current data. However, Stephen Denning&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-age-of-agile\/\">book The Age of Agile<\/a> says that using these predictions won&#8217;t give you an accurate reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep reading to learn why you need to be careful with your company&#8217;s projections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-don-t-assume-the-future-will-resemble-the-past\"><strong>Don&#8217;t Assume the Future Will Resemble the Past<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Denning explains that traditional business relies heavily on analyzing past data to forecast future market conditions. The idea is that, if companies collect and analyze enough data about what has happened before, they can make business projections and pre-emptively invest their resources accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: While many would agree with Denning that data can&#8217;t tell us the future, some business experts argue that forecasts are still useful in guiding decisions. However, they contend that rather than assuming forecasts will come true, business leaders need to <a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/1997\/11\/strategy-under-uncertainty\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">embrace uncertainty<\/a> and think through the probabilities of a range of possible outcomes. One way to do this is with <a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/1967\/03\/technological-forecasting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">technological forecasting<\/a>\u2014attempts to predict which technologies are poised for rapid growth and which sectors of the economy will be most impacted. Though these forecasts are never 100% accurate, business leaders still rely on them to steer their investment decisions.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-it-doesn-t-work-anymore-unpredictability\">Why It Doesn\u2019t Work Anymore: Unpredictability<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Denning explains that <strong>this approach falls short because data can only tell us what has happened before\u2014not what will happen in the future.<\/strong> Data cannot predict disruptions and innovations, which are hallmarks of the modern business landscape.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-advancement-of-technology\/\">Advancements in technology<\/a>, communications, and interconnectedness translate into high levels of unpredictability and constant change. To remain viable, businesses must adapt swiftly to changing conditions, often by pivoting to tap new markets, create new products, and adopt new technologies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result,&nbsp; <strong>companies can no longer depend on their analysis of data from the past to steer them into the future. <\/strong>&nbsp;For example, a company might develop a five-year strategic plan, only to find that within two years, a disruptive innovation has rendered their product obsolete, and now they have to pivot to a completely new product. Their strategic plan, though well-researched and supported by data, may turn out to be useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: In <a href=\"https:\/\/shortform.com\/app\/book\/the-signal-and-the-noise\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The Signal and The Noise<\/em><\/a>, Nate Silver agrees that the complexity of the world has made prediction more difficult\u2014but not necessarily because things change more quickly. Instead, he argues that the sheer volume of information has made it more difficult to distinguish between <em>signal <\/em>(information that will help you make an accurate prediction) and <em>noise <\/em>(irrelevant information that will mislead your prediction). Silver argues that because we now have access to more information than we\u2019ve ever had before, we also have more noise than ever, <a href=\"https:\/\/shortform.com\/app\/book\/the-signal-and-the-noise#we-trust-too-much-in-data-and-technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">making accurate predictions increasingly difficult<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are business projections always accurate? How often does the market change? Business projections are a way for companies to predict future income and performance based on current data. However, Stephen Denning&#8217;s book The Age of Agile says that using these predictions won&#8217;t give you an accurate reading. Keep reading to learn why you need to be careful with your company&#8217;s projections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":141036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,30],"tags":[1735],"class_list":["post-140775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-work","tag-the-age-of-agile","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Business Projections Don&#039;t Accurately Tell the Future - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Predicting a company&#039;s future data isn&#039;t as accurate as you think it is. Here&#039;s why making business projections does more harm than good.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Business Projections Don&#039;t Accurately Tell the Future\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Predicting a company&#039;s future data isn&#039;t as accurate as you think it is. Here&#039;s why making business projections does more harm than good.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-08T15:32:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-10T17:02:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1456\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"816\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Katie Doll\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Katie Doll\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Katie Doll\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c3e1b539e89423b544ede91ab2bff937\"},\"headline\":\"Why Business Projections Don&#8217;t Accurately Tell the Future\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-08T15:32:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-02-10T17:02:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/\"},\"wordCount\":483,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"The Age of Agile\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business\",\"Work\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/\",\"name\":\"Why Business Projections Don't Accurately Tell the Future - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-08T15:32:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-02-10T17:02:15+00:00\",\"description\":\"Predicting a company's future data isn't as accurate as you think it is. Here's why making business projections does more harm than good.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp\",\"width\":1456,\"height\":816,\"caption\":\"A line graph of business projections with an arrow going up\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why Business Projections Don&#8217;t Accurately Tell the Future\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"description\":\"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":74,\"caption\":\"Shortform Books\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c3e1b539e89423b544ede91ab2bff937\",\"name\":\"Katie Doll\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6239731a3fc739640b80be30f2b1727a055d3535d0ee4569e8282faa323e47fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6239731a3fc739640b80be30f2b1727a055d3535d0ee4569e8282faa323e47fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Katie Doll\"},\"description\":\"Somehow, Katie was able to pull off her childhood dream of creating a career around books after graduating with a degree in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. Her preferred genre of books has changed drastically over the years, from fantasy\/dystopian young-adult to moving novels and non-fiction books on the human experience. Katie especially enjoys reading and writing about all things television, good and bad.\",\"knowsAbout\":[\"Bachelor of Arts in English With a Concentration in Creative Writing\"],\"jobTitle\":\"Senior SEO Writer\",\"worksFor\":\"Shortform\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/katie\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Business Projections Don't Accurately Tell the Future - Shortform Books","description":"Predicting a company's future data isn't as accurate as you think it is. Here's why making business projections does more harm than good.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Business Projections Don't Accurately Tell the Future","og_description":"Predicting a company's future data isn't as accurate as you think it is. Here's why making business projections does more harm than good.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/","og_site_name":"Shortform Books","article_published_time":"2025-02-08T15:32:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-02-10T17:02:15+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1456,"height":816,"url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp","type":"image\/webp"}],"author":"Katie Doll","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Katie Doll","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/"},"author":{"name":"Katie Doll","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c3e1b539e89423b544ede91ab2bff937"},"headline":"Why Business Projections Don&#8217;t Accurately Tell the Future","datePublished":"2025-02-08T15:32:02+00:00","dateModified":"2025-02-10T17:02:15+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/"},"wordCount":483,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp","keywords":["The Age of Agile"],"articleSection":["Business","Work"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/","name":"Why Business Projections Don't Accurately Tell the Future - Shortform Books","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp","datePublished":"2025-02-08T15:32:02+00:00","dateModified":"2025-02-10T17:02:15+00:00","description":"Predicting a company's future data isn't as accurate as you think it is. Here's why making business projections does more harm than good.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp","width":1456,"height":816,"caption":"A line graph of business projections with an arrow going up"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/business-projections\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Business Projections Don&#8217;t Accurately Tell the Future"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","name":"Shortform Books","description":"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Shortform Books","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","width":500,"height":74,"caption":"Shortform Books"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c3e1b539e89423b544ede91ab2bff937","name":"Katie Doll","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6239731a3fc739640b80be30f2b1727a055d3535d0ee4569e8282faa323e47fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6239731a3fc739640b80be30f2b1727a055d3535d0ee4569e8282faa323e47fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Katie Doll"},"description":"Somehow, Katie was able to pull off her childhood dream of creating a career around books after graduating with a degree in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. Her preferred genre of books has changed drastically over the years, from fantasy\/dystopian young-adult to moving novels and non-fiction books on the human experience. Katie especially enjoys reading and writing about all things television, good and bad.","knowsAbout":["Bachelor of Arts in English With a Concentration in Creative Writing"],"jobTitle":"Senior SEO Writer","worksFor":"Shortform","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/katie\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/business-projections.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140775"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141049,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140775\/revisions\/141049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}