Shortly after “Gone with the Wind” had been published, a young woman sat beside a history professor at a dinner. Trying to make conversation, she asked him if he had read it.

“No,” he answered.

The woman admonished, “You’d better hurry up. It’s been out 6 weeks.”

Then the professor asked, “Have you read Dante’s Divine Comedy?”

“No,” the woman said.

“You’d better hurry up. It’s been out 600 years.”

When it comes to the topic of Activity Based Management (ABM), some of the “old” books actually outsell many of the new ones. Have you read these “ABM classics”?

• Activity Accounting: An Activity-Based Costing Approachby James Brimson. This 1991 book, now in paperback, contains an eloquent argument for the improvement of cost management systems.
• The Ernst & Young Guide to Total Cost Managementwas first published in 1992, but it’s content is still very relevant today. It covers both ABM cost improvement and ABC cost allocation.
• Using ABM for Continuous Improvementhas sold 10,000 copies since its introduction in 1995. Written primarily for non-accountants, this book explains with
• words and pictures “how to” do activity analysis, activity accounting, 5-Step cost improvement and Activity Based Budgeting.

These days, new books dealing with all sorts of subjects pour from printing presses onto Barnes & Noble bookshelves and into Amazon.com’s web pages. Even if we did nothing but read, we couldn’t keep up with the output. So we must discriminate and decide what we’ll read and what we’ll ignore.

Here are five books I’ve read during the past six months that I found both interesting and informational. You may want to consider one or more of them for your summer reading:

• Driving Value Using Activity-Based Budgetingby James Brimson and John Antos. Not only do the authors address the principles and procedures of ABB, they also
• discuss feature costing and capacity management.
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. This book is full of thought provoking paradigms, e.g. your house is a liability, not an asset.
• Failing Forwardby John Maxwell. I think John is the best leadership expert in the marketplace today. In this book, he shows us how we can turn mistakes into
• stepping-stones for success. If you’ve experienced a failed ABM Pilot Project, this book is for you.
• Simplicityby Bill Jensen. A powerful new insight, based on case studies, as to why jobs are overly complex and how to simplify activities. Jensen says, “work
• complexity is wasting up to two hours per day per person.” Sounds like non-value added costs to me!
• Activity-Based Information Systemsby Mohan Nair. This is a very new book on some of the informational technology issues associated with ABC. Four case studies are included. ICMS is proud to note that the author recommends our www.ICMS.net web site to his readers.

Mark Twain once said, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” Take time this summer to gain an advantage for both yourself and your organization by reading one or more of these excellent books.