Speaker 1: Hi there, and welcome back to engVid. My name is Benjamin. Today's lesson is primarily aimed at those of you using English for business, particularly those of you who have some hand in project management and keeping control of the finances, the budgets. So let's plow straight on in. Just a quick overview, we're going to be looking at possible problems, when things go wrong, when things are going well, and then looking at some top tips, as in a device you can give others. So things that might go wrong. Well, if we're looking after a pot of money and no attention has been paid to the detail, then maybe some's gone here, some's gone there, some's gone there, and then all of a sudden, oh, there's no money left. A lack, that means not enough attention to detail in the planning. So that can refer to more things other than the budget, the project. Was it planned in enough detail? Now, if things fall behind, the project is moving too slowly, then we would say that it is behind schedule, behind schedule. So we're on Monday, but the work, we're still doing Friday's work, we're behind schedule. And if you become behind schedule, then you're going to need to play or have to play catch-up. So if we've got a race and my friend is ahead of me, then I have to try and catch him up. If we're playing catch-up at work, then we're meant to have done this, so very quickly we have to reach this level. We have to catch-up. If you are ill, then when you come back from being ill, you need to catch-up on all your emails and all the work you need to do. Now, I have created a lesson on sort of sailing, boat idioms, etc., so this one is in there. But if you missed the boat, then you're too late. Maybe you're applying for a job and the deadline is 9 o'clock, and if you don't finish your application by 9 o'clock, you've missed the boat, or more formally, to miss the deadline. Often, idioms can be used in a more sort of social and informal way, where the accurate vocabulary to the point is often what's used in business English. That's a generalization. Other problems. If you run out of money, it doesn't mean you're running away. No, it just means... It means the money has run away. You have run out. There's no money left. Maybe that was caused by an unrealistic budget. Could you practice saying that with me? Unrealistic budget. And once again, unrealistic budget. So, reality is, you know, the real world. If something is realistic, then it's in line with how the world is. I think realistically, it's looking like it might snow tomorrow. If I have unrealistic expectations of the weather, I might think it's going to be sunny. An unrealistic budget is a plan for the money in the project that is not realistic. Budget constraints. Constraints is like a tie that holds you. So, it's like a limitation. Budget limitations. So, we can only spend this amount on burritos. Key consideration. If you go over budget, then you spend too much, maybe on the burrito. You go for the extra large instead of the large. Yep. You're out of control. You can't help it. You're like, I want the extra large, but the budget says you're only allowed the large. We've got to pay attention to the detail, haven't we? We don't want to be running out of money. Yep. We need to have realistic budgets. If I can't help getting an extra large burrito, then I need to be more realistic with my budget. I make it sound like I've got some real food problem. Okay. Let's look at effective planning. Effective planning, when we plan effectively, we stay within budget. So, our plan is to spend this amount, and maybe we spend less than that. It doesn't happen to me very often, but I like the idea. To stay on track. Track, yep, like the train track. So, if a project is on track, then we're going to be meeting the deadline. The deadline's kind of at the next stop. Choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo. We're on track. We're going to get there. If your budget is on track, then you're not spending too much. Yep. You're staying on the straight and the narrow. You're staying on the path. Yeah. An accurate forecast. Yep. Forecast. What is coming our way? What is coming forward? What's coming from... You know, the weather forecast. What weather are we about to have? An accurate forecast. An accurate prediction. An accurate forecast of maybe the money that is coming into the business. We're going to have this sale, this commission. If you get that accurate, it will be easier to plan the budget. Upfront planning, meaning planning in advance. Plans are meant to be about what's meant to happen. It's a very strange situation to have to do plans for things you have already done. You don't want to do that. You want to plan upfront, before. To make the launch date. Launch. Rocket. If you make the launch date, then the project is running to time. Or, even better, ahead of schedule. So, over here, we had behind schedule. Yeah, you're all late and you're doing last week's work. If you're ahead of schedule, you're like, whoo. I've done all of this work, and now I'm going to do next week's work. Okay, you still with me? Good. Hope you are a subscriber, because that helps me to make these videos. And let's have a look at some key tips. This quote is often quoted by Benjamin Franklin. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Sometimes shortened to, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Well, sounds all rather negative. Let's avoid that, shall we, by prioritizing tasks. Say it after me. Prioritizing. I know it says prioritize. Say prioritizing. Good, in the So, you have a to-do list. Yep. People normally have long to-do lists. Prioritizing the tasks, the things you need to do, is going, right, well that is more important than that. I often have two columns on a piece of paper saying sort of urgent and non-urgent. Or, before I came here to Toronto, it was before Canada, urgent, non-urgent. Different people do it in different ways. To keep a tab on spending. Now, if you go into a pub in the UK and say, can I start up a tab, please? It means that they just write down everything you spend, and then at the end, you pay the bill. So, if you keep a tab on spending, what you're doing is you're writing it down. You're taking note as it happens. Allocate sufficient, again, difficult to pronounce, sufficient resources. Adjective meaning enough, and the verb here, allocate, means that's going for this, that's for this, that's for this. This is how much we're spending on rent, this is how much we are spending on food, this is how much we're spending on transport. So, putting, you know, deciding to give enough for each of the things. Here, resources, allocating sufficient resources, well, money is a resource, time is a resource, manpower. To make a contingency plan. I've written here that contingency means a backup plan, plan B. So, this is plan A, but if it all goes wrong, if it snows tomorrow and we can't do anything like that, our contingency plan, good formal English, that, a contingency plan. At my cousin's wedding, the father of the groom, that's the man getting married, had a contingency plan in case there was a huge flood, which seemed rather unlikely, but got to think of all eventualities. Shall I write that down for you? Eventualities, that means anything that happens. Eventualities in the plural, eventualities. We're going to check progress at every stage. So, you can imagine this man was very detail orientated as he prepared for his son's wedding, and he was making sure that progress was being made at every stage. Has this been done? Has this been done? Can we have an update on this, please? Yeah, very, very detail orientated. Can be a bit of a headache. Now I've just got a few ways in which time, stay, and keep can be used to talk about budgets, et cetera, and plans. Time, you're not going to run out of time. So, we've had run out of money, where there's no more money. It's the same idea. The time goes, oh no, I'm leaving Canada tomorrow, and I've run out of time, and I haven't done this, and I haven't done that. Stay, I could, but it wouldn't be very popular. Stay, you managing to stay on track you managing? So, a manager handles things, yep, they organize, control things. If you are managing, you're kind of surviving, you're being able to do it. Are you being able to stay on track? Are you doing okay on track? Are you on progress? Still going okay? You're going to meet the deadline? Are you staying within the budget? You're not going over budget, staying within the budget. I don't think I've ever done that in my life, must learn. Keep, keep to the budget. Yep, this is how much we're spending, we keep to it. Keep to the launch date, yep, getting everything ready for the big day, and keeping costs down, yep, less spending. Hope there's been some really useful vocab for you in today's lesson. As a way of revising the content, do go over to the engVid website where you'll be able to do today's quiz. Thanks for watching, do share with someone who would find this useful, and I'll see you in the next video just as long as you're subscribing so you know when it is out. Thanks.