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Did You Know...?

That Value Analysis Was Developed Back In the 1940's After World War II as a Way to Find Lower Cost but Higher Quality Alternative products and methods. This was Due to the Lack of Material Resources At The End of The War.

Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter - May 12, 2011

 

A Note from Robert T. Yokl,
President and Chief Value Strategist

A Spring Thought….

Similar to perennial flowers, healthcare organizations must plant seeds today in order to generate a new savings harvest tomorrow, next quarter and next year.  The hands-down best way we have found to do this is to pinpoint your healthcare organization’s utilization misalignments.

In brief, the typical healthcare organization has up to 30,000 SKUs or seeds it must continuously track, manage, weed and control to ensure that they are healthy, hardy and productive. To quote Brent Petty, Director, Supply Chain, Wellmont Health System, “Price is and always will be part of the conversation, but we can’t discount our way into profitability. Supply chain must navigate through difficult conversations focusing on using the correct product and correct quantity at the right time.” So plant your perennial seeds now for both short and long-term savings results.

 

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Team Effectiveness = People Skills?

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When we first started training and facilitating value analysis teams for our clients in the 1990s our approach then was to emphasis VA techniques more often than people skills as the key to savings success.  What we quickly learned was that interpersonal or soft skills were even more essential when managing VA projects and people. This transition in our training and facilitation from VA skills to an equal measure of people skills started with the selection of our client’s VA team leaders.

After some research we discovered that the most successful VA teams that we trained, organized and facilitated had the most people savvy team leaders. They had a positive attitude, looked to the future, were mentally agile and created order out of chaos. After establishing a rigorous selection criteria and a vetting process for the appointment of VA team leaders 80% of our clients’ people problems disappeared from their VA teams. 

What about the other 20%? We then established criteria and a selection process for VA team members based on the attributes of successful VA team members than we had observed over the years (analytical thinker, organized, reliable, enthusiastic, takes initiative, computer literate, etc.). This quickly solved another 10% of our people challenges. 

New rules of engagement! To top off our people skills strategies and tactics we added new rules to our VA Team-Based Project Management™ Model that were to be followed by our client’s VA team members which they would be held accountable. For instance, team members were to have their projects completed within 90-days; 80% attendance at all VA meetings; project status reports were to be turned in even if VA member wasn’t able to attend a VA meeting; no VA member could resign from a VA team without completing their current project, etc. These rules gave adhesive, substance and concrete guidelines to our clients’ VA process; now everyone involved knew what the rules of the VA game were. 

All and all, we have discovered over the last two decades that the success of a VA team’s effectiveness is based on a combination of VA and people skills. The absences of one or the other of these skills will inhibit your VA team’s growth, maturity and productivity.  So if you want to maximize your VA team’s effectiveness don’t skimp on either of these must have skill sets or you will risk stunting the evolution of your VA team’s process.

Warmest Regards,

Robert T. Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
Bobpres@strategicva.com
1-800-220-4274

Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,

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