The 26 Things You Didn’t Know about SVAH
- Robert W. Yokl(7-years) and Robert T. Yokl (34-years) are both members of Lions Club International (Skippack Lions Club).
- Robert T. Yokl was once the Director of Purchasing for St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.
- Robert T. Yokl established value analysis teams in all of his hospitals and systems where he worked before forming Strategic Value Analysis® in Healthcare in 1987.
- SVAH has trained over 5,426 healthcare professionals in value analysis and supply savings methodologies.
- SVAH Produces the #1 Healthcare Supply Chain Podcast with Over 50,000 downloads/listens to date
- SVAH coined the term “Savings Beyond Price™” in 2000.
- Strategic Value Analysis® in Healthcare was originally named The HCP Group, Ltd. (The Healthcare Professionals Group, Ltd) and is still our corporate parent’s name.
- Robert W. Yokl began his financial and IT career for six years with ADP, the leading provider of payroll, HR and business financial services, before joining SVAH in 1992.
- SVAH is constantly researching and developing new ways for our clients to save more money in less time with less effort.
- Robert T. Yokl was a Hospital Corpsman in the U.S. Navy.
- SVAH published the Healthcare Strategic Value Analysis - #1 Guide to Driving Out Costs Healthcare Supply Value Analysis in 2001
- SVAH introduced the first Value Analysis software to the healthcare industry in 1997 (ValueWare® now web based ValueNetCentral)
- Robert W. Yokl has developed three software programs for Supply Value Analysis (ValueNet), Supply Utilization (Utilizer) and Productivity Management (Perform).
- Robert T. Yokl is a Melvin Jones Fellow for dedicated humanitarian services presented by the Lions International Foundation.
- SVAH was a regional firm until it went national in 1998.
- Robert T. Yokl is a frequent speaker at Local, regional and state-wide AHRMM Chapter Meetings and other healthcare associations.
- Robert W. Yokl is the Immediate Past President of the Skippack Lions Club in Pennsylvania.
- SVAH has clients in 35 States in the United States.
- SVAH has worked with over 456 Hospitals and Health Systems in the U.S.
- SVAH’s Weekly Tip of the Week has been published since July 2001 (going on 9th year).
- Robert T. Yokl was a consultant for 7 years for a national for-profit hospital management company.
- Robert T. Yokl was a contributing editor for Aspens 1986 book, “Product Standardization and Evaluation” book (Edited by Charles Housley).
- Robert T. Yokl was a founding member of the New Jersey Hospital Association Group Purchasing Program.
- SVAH has saved over $413 million for our healthcare organizations.
- Robert T. Yokl was the Director of Materials Management for Huntingdon Medical Center in Flemington, NJ.
- Robert T. Yokl has written over 600 published articles specific to the Healthcare Supply Chain.
Value Analysis is all about SCAMPER
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – June 24, 2009
Robert T. Yokl
President & Chief Value Strategist
Value Analysis is all about SCAMPER
Greetings,
If you aren’t using the techniques of SCAMPER to boost your value analysis savings and improve your quality, then I have a big savings idea to share with you today. Here’s what I’m talking about!
Value analysis is all about “the search for lower cost alternatives to meet your desired functions (primary, secondary and aesthetic) reliably”. Whereas, SCAMPER is a proven technique to help you reach this goal. That’s because every new idea is just an addition or modification to something that already existed which SCAMPER helps you flush out.
So if you can modify, adjust, or alter a product, service or technology you are buying you will dramatically increase your odds of coming up with new and better ideas that can save your money or improve your quality.
Here’s a mnemonic developed by Bob Eberle to help you remember the SCAMPER concept when you are applying it to your value analysis studies:
Substitute something: Replacing a disposable with a reusable.
Combine it with something: Adding it to a kit, tray or pack.
Adapt something to it: Add fax chips to PCs to eliminate fax machines.
Modify or Magnify it: Reduce the size, volume or bulk of a item.
Put it to some other use: Use gloves for ice packs (it’s been done).
Eliminate something: Removing items from kit, tray or pack.
Reverse or Rearrange it: Don’t use custom packs at all (it’s been done).
Simply put, the SCAMPER mnemonic is all about searching out new and better alternatives to what you are doing and what you are buying now and will force you and your VA teams to change your thought patterns. This in turn will change your thinking about how you can save money or improve your quality. It will open up whole new vistas and pathways that will give you and your VA teams surprising insights and ideas on how to save money in every corner of your healthcare organization.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. If your value analysis team(s) is in a slump you may want to invest in our two-day on-site advance value analysis training program to move your value analysis teams and committees to the next level of savings performance.
Dollarize to Save Big
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – June 10, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
Dollarize to Save Big
Greetings,
One of the techniques that we teach in our advance value analysis training programs is to “dollarize to save big” so that you can, for the first time, negotiate out unwanted and unneeded functions and features on your customer’s requested new (or existing) products, services and technologies. This is a powerful tactic that you need to understand and then consistently employ in all of your commodity negotiations with your customers.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about! There was a recent study conducted by J.D Power asking potential car buyers what functions and features they desired in their cars. This was done without showing them the price of these options. Naturally, one of the highest rated features (second on this list) was a navigation system, but when these same buyers were shown the cost of the navigation system ($1,500) their ranking for this option dropped from second to 10th on their wish list.
Why did this happen? Because when you dollarize the functions or features for any commodity purchase you give your customers a REALITY CHECK to make sure that they absolutely, positively need it. In most cases, they won’t select a high price option if they can’t value justify it in their own mind.
Here’s another example? If you would dollarize how many ports you clinicians need in your IV sets ($1.00 each), you will find most clinicians won’t select more ports then they actually need to get their job done. On the other hand, if you ask these same clinicians how many ports they require in their IV set without dollarizing, every one of them will select the maximum amount available. It’s just human nature to ask for more then you really need to give yourself a safety zone to work in.
So, if you want to dramatically reduce the total cost of everything you are buying don’t forget to “dollarize to save big” when you are negotiating with your customers on the things that they say are really important to them. You will be pleasantly surprised at the savings results!
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. Is it time to think about advanced training for your value analysis team/committee? With many hospitals about to start a new Fiscal Year with more challenging savings goals than ever before, you may want to give your teams an added advantage with advanced value analysis training.
Five Myths Vs Facts
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – June 10, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
Five Myths vs. Facts!
Greetings,
Over time we all develop a belief system that is based on our life experiences, biases, and traditions but are these viewpoints myths or are they facts? These collective perspectives or assumptions that we gather over time can relate to our supply chain world as well as our life!
From a supply chain perspective if these beliefs and assumptions aren’t tested, inspected and examined vigorously we could be overlooking big breakthroughs in our supply chain management. Here are five myths versus facts that you should be reexamining in order for you to remove any performance gaps in your supply chain operations:
1. Benchmarking Doesn’t Work
I can’t count the times a MM has told me that they believe that benchmarking doesn’t work because it is inexact science or we are different. By holding this belief, these MMs are missing the opportunity to save millions of dollars annually.
To the contrary, benchmarking is an art and science that has been proven in every industry, including healthcare, to be the best methodology to identify gaps in an organization’s performance. This leads us to search out best practices to fill those gaps that are costing us thousands, maybe even millions of dollars annually.
2. Price Savings are Forever
I hope everyone understands that “nothing is forever”, but too many MMs believe that this truism doesn’t apply to price savings when the facts inform us differently. With few exceptions, hospitals, systems and IDNs are just holding the line on inflation (3.9% for 2008) with their price savings, not beating it. This fact would lead me to believe that MMs should be searching out other sources of savings if they want to beat the inflation rate each and every year.
3. Utilization Management isn’t a Priority
Considering that price savings are slowly disappearing, what better source of new savings (7% to 15%) could there be than utilization (in-use cost)? How then can MMs IGNORE these big savings opportunities by stating that it isn’t a priority? Shouldn’t the highest level of savings available at a healthcare organization, with the best ROIs, be an uppermost priority to every supply chain manager?
4. Value Analysis is all About GPO Contracts
Every time we visit with a value analysis team we find them evaluating their new GPO contracts, with very little emphasis on the waste and inefficiency in their supply chain.
Value analysis ISN’T about GPO contracts; it’s all about functional analysis, which has nothing to do with GPO contracts. When will we get these two disparate supply chain activities designations right?
5. Purchases Services isn’t in our Scope
I was just told again last week by a value analysis manager that he doesn’t believe that purchase services should be in the scope of his supply value analysis program. Then I asked him who did he think should be functionally analyzing these contracts?
The way I see it your department heads won’t, your supply chain department is too busy, and your administration doesn’t even have these multi-year million dollar purchases on their radar screen. That’s why purchase service contracts MUST, in my opinion, be in the scope of your supply chain department and evaluated by your value analysis teams. To do less is to relinquish hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings annually.
These five myths vs. the facts should raise your consciousness to the possibility that all commonly held beliefs and assumptions aren’t always factually true. That’s why you need to challenge not only your own beliefs and assumptions, but those held by others in your healthcare organization that might not pass the test of time.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for this ONE-TIME-ONLY “How to Create, Manage and Maintain High Performance Value Analysis Teams” NO COST webinar on June 17th (Eastern) at 1:00pm (Eastern). This webinar is exclusively designed for those hospitals, systems and IDNs who are seriously looking for new and better strategies, tactics and techniques to take your supply value analysis program to the next level of savings performance.
Focus on What Matters!
I often tell audiences when I’m speaking about “focus on what matters” that early in my supply chain career I delegated ALL of my price related activities to my buyers while I focused my savings efforts almost exclusively on value analysis. Why did I make this decision?
Well, I found early on in my career that it was easy to get the best pricing on everything that I bought if I contracted through my GPO or bid a commodity that wasn’t under a GPO contract. I didn’t need to lose sleep over this important, but very manageable activity any longer.
That’s when I realized that value analysis was where the action, opportunities, and recognition were in any healthcare organization. From that point forward, at every hospital, system and IDN I worked I immediately formed value analysis teams to root out the waste and inefficiency in my healthcare organization’s supply chain.
By doing so, I immediately saved my hospital, system or IDN millions of dollars (beyond price) annually, and gained a reputation as a superb material manager. This reputation wouldn’t have come to pass if I decided to use my skills to shave two or three cents off the pencils I was buying.
More importantly, because of the high visibility my value analysis teams attained in these healthcare organizations everyone in the organization knew us by our achievements (better quality, service and reduced cost). When it came time for my annual pay raise or bonus negotiations my senior management never quibbled about giving me a raise or promotion because they had seen my work first hand in a very observable way.
So if you are looking for more money, more recognition and more promotions in your healthcare organization, I would recommend that you “focus on what matters” – value analysis. And let your price savings become an automatic and systematic task that shouldn’t take much of your valuable time at all.
No Magic Bullet
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – June 3, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
No Magic Bullet
Greetings,
I think that there is a tendency in healthcare for supply chain professionals to seek out a “magic bullet” that will be a quick fix to ALL of our supply chain expense management challenges. But is this really the best path for you to take to improve your supply chain performance?
For years we all thought that the big quick fix was to have high compliance with our GPOs. Then every one thought the road to success was to purchase a new MMIS system to give them high visibility in their supply spend. This was followed by a massive movement by hospitals, systems and IDNs to cleanse their data. Now we all seem to be jumping on the data analytics train as if this is ultimate quick fix to all our supply expense management issues.
This is the road often traveled by supply chain professionals in their search for better performance, but these quick fixes will never sustain long-lasting bottom-line results. If you want to be better than good in your supply chain performance you will need to choose systemic solutions, not quick fixes.
We have worked with numerous healthcare organizations that have employed all of the quick fixes I just talked about, but they still haven’t optimized, institutionalized or operationalized their supply chains’ savings efforts. This is because these organizations haven’t systematized these efforts into a cohesive operating plan, but instead jump from one quick fix to another hoping that this new “magic bullet” will be the definitive answer to all of their supply expense management problems.
It is now high time for healthcare organizations, with limited time, money and resources, to ditch these quick fixes in favor of a strategic, systematic and programmatic performance improvement effort that seamlessly fits into a carefully thought out supply chain expense management short and long-range plan.
This way when a new saving idea, suggestion or scheme comes across your desk you won’t get caught up in quick fixes, band-aids or costly fads that don’t meet your exact strategic or tactical goals and objectives for any given year.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for this ONE-TIME-ONLY “How to Create, Manage and Maintain High Performance Value Analysis Teams” NO COST webinar on June 17th (Eastern). This webinar is exclusively designed for those hospitals, systems and IDNs who are seriously looking for new and better strategies, tactics and techniques to take your supply value analysis program to the next level of savings performance.
How to Create, Manage and Maintain High Performance Value Analysis Teams
Healthcare Supply Chain Best Practices
How to Create, Manage and Maintain High
Performance Value Analysis Teams
Take Your Value Analysis Savings and Quality Improvement Program to a Whole New Level of Higher Performance and Quality Results
Webinar Objectives:
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Evolution of Supply Value Analysis Committees and Teams?
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Where They Came From
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Where They Are Going
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What Works
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What Doesn’t Work
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What Are the Results You Can Expect With A High Performing Value Analysis Team(s)?
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Teams Vs. Committees, Which Works Best?
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What Are the Key Components to a Successful Value Analysis Team?
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Structure
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Strategic Vision
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Management Backing
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Fueling the Savings Fire
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Team Dynamic
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Solid Leadership Model
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Repeatable System
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Strong Reporting
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How Do You Set Up a Win-Win Value Analysis Program/System?
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Convincing Senior Management that this is the Right Way to Go
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Creating A Value Analysis Strategic Plan
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Gaining Peer Participation and Buy-In
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Making it Happen!
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How Do You Manage Team Members with Competing Priorities?
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Lean Management
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TQM
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Six Sigma
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Service Excellence
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Managing Their Departments and Jobs
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Other Special Projects
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How Do You Break Through the Barriers that Hold Value Analysis Teams True Performance Back?
Thursday, June 17th – 1:00pm Eastern
All Registered Attendee’s Will Receive a Copy of the Webinar Slides and Audio Replay at No Cost to You!
PLUS...You Will Also Receive a Copy of SVAH’s Value Analysis Strategic Planning e-Workbook
Strategic Supply Chain Webinar Series Leader – Robert T. Yokl, President/Chief Value Strategist and Robert W. Yokl, VP of Operations, Strategic Value Analysis in Healthcare
Remember…The Webinar May Be FREE But The Information is Priceless
Are You Getting Serious About Value Analysis?
We are seeing a very positive emerging trend in healthcare today: hospitals, systems and IDNs are getting serious about value analysis. The question I have for you is “Are you getting serious about value analysis too!”
For years value analysis was something we told our bosses and colleagues we were doing to make them think we were on the cutting edge of supply chain management. We knew however in our heart of hearts that our team(s) or committee(s) weren’t generating the savings and quality improvements that they could or should be. We knew our team or committee members weren’t attending meetings, that we weren’t getting management support that we needed to be successful and that our department heads and managers too often placed barriers in our path that prevented us from making savings happen.
That was then, this is now! We are now seeing hospitals, systems and IDNs providing formal advanced training for their senior management and value analysis teams in the classic tenets of value analysis, organizing their teams to save and seeking out new power tools to manage, monitor and control their supply value analysis program. They are hiring professional trained value analysis coordinators, managers or directors to manage their supply value analysis program.
Why Now, not then? No hospital, system or IDN, with their dip in revenues due to the recession, can leave a significant 7% to 15% in utilization supply expense savings on the table untouched. In the past this 7% to 15% seemed nice to have, but now is critical to their survival. That’s where value analysis comes to the rescue!
Value analysis, if practiced patiently, fervently, artfully and scientifically is the vital savings engine that all healthcare organizations (large and small) need to make Savings Beyond Price™ quickly happen. But this budding success story won’t materialize unless your senior management, team(s) or committee(s) has the requisite tools, training and executive management support required to create, manage and maintain high performance value analysis teams.
So if your hospital, system or IDN is getting serious about value analysis just remember this important salient fact: value analysis isn’t about establishing a value analysis team or teams and then telling them to GO SAVE MONEY! It’s all about having highly trained, motivated and incentivized VA team leaders and team members that understand, internalize and vigorously apply the six-step value analysis methodology to uncover and then implement any and all savings opportunities for your healthcare organization.
Are You Really Different?
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – May 27, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
Are You Really Different?
Greetings,
When we discuss our benchmark findings with our clients they often say, “My hospital is different”. This is frequently their first reaction to savings opportunities we have uncovered for them with our UTILIZER™ Dashboard. The question they should be asking themselves is, “why are we different?
Here’s why! Hospitals of the same size, type and with similar operating characteristics should be utilizing, within an acceptable range, their individual products, services and technologies at the same velocity and intensity.
If you find that you are NOT within an acceptable range (plus or minus 3%) through benchmarking, then you need to seriously question why not. In some cases, you will find that you are indeed different and your benchmarks need to be reset to account for your legitimate differentiation. Here are three reasons in which hospitals are genuinely different:
1. Unique Conditions – One hospital we worked with was utilizing a huge quantity of disposable bath systems only to find that they didn’t have showers in their patient rooms. This physical constraint required this hospital to use more of this product since they had no alternative.
2. Management Fiat – A client’s corporate office mandated that their four hospitals standardize on hyper-allergenic gloves throughout their facilities. Naturally, they would have more dollars in this category of purchase than their peers.
3. Operating Culture – It was decided by another client of ours that they would employ Oxisensors on their patients using PCA Pumps for Pain Meds. to make doubly sure they were safe. This substantially increased the volume of Oxisensors this hospital was buying.
4. Tradition & Rituals – Another client of ours placed logos on many of their products (coffee/soda cups, patient water cups, carafes, etc.) that increased the cost on all of these commodities. This certainly made them different than most of our clients.
So as you can see, there are justifiable reasons why your hospital might be DIFFERENT in the way you utilize your products, services and technologies. However, these outliers are not be construed as common practices in our industry. That’s why you need to measure and observe why you are different, before you can make the case that your hospital is really different!
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. Our clients find that our UTILIZER™ Dashboard is an easy way to indentify utilization misalignments, instead of just “skimming the surface” of their savings. Take a “test drive” today!
Make Savings A Team Effort!
Our research, surveys and empirical data tell us that too many supply chain professionals are trying to make all or most of the supply chain savings for their hospital, system or IDN themselves. While this is a commendable effort, it isn’t productive, prudent or cost effective in the long run.
A much better way is to share the workload with your value analysis team members. I will guarantee that by doing so, you will increase your savings output by 300%, 400% or even 500%. If you don’t have a value analysis team(s) now, then it is high time you establish one to lighten your workload, increase your throughput and boost your buy-in on your savings ideas.
It then becomes your job to facilitate, coach, train and consult with your VA team leaders and VA team members to ensure that your VA team is on track, on budget and on target to save big for your healthcare organization.
One of the secrets of personal productivity is DELEGATION: Assigning others your responsibility, but not your accountability to get things done! That’s what a VA team can do for you. It will provide you with many extra experienced hands that you will need to operate at peak performance. The alternative is to continue to be swamped, frazzled and overworked while getting little, if any, real, robust savings work done.
Why You Should NOT Lay Off Your VA Coordinator?
I have observed a troubling trend that is popping up all over the healthcare landscape. This trend in hospitals, systems and IDNs are laying off their value analysis coordinators, managers and directors because of the affects of the new economy. This doesn’t make any sense to me, but it is a reality!
In fact, I was shocked when I called one of our Certified Value Analysis Leaders only to find out that she was laid off from a major teaching hospital last month, who I considered one of the best in the field. How could this happen?
I have a theory; see if you agree with me. I believe that this Value Analysis Manager didn’t show the intrinsic VALUE of her position to her senior management every day, in every way, and when every opportunity came her way. Therefore, her senior management, when the chips were down, didn’t see the VALUE of her position, so they eliminated it.
Don’t make this same fatal mistake! If you are a value analysis coordinator, manager or director take a lesson from this story. You MUST make yourself highly visible to your healthcare organization’s senior management and make sure they recognize you as an essential, indispensible and important cog in your hospital’s supply chains wheel. This can be accomplished by these four visibility tactics:
1. Sending a monthly, quarterly and annual report to your senior management on your VA savings and activities.
2. Publish a monthly Value Analysis Newsletter and circulate it to all of your senior management, department heads and managers talking about your VA successes.
3. Make sure that there is a member of your hospital’s senior management team on ALL of your value analysis teams.
4. Facilitate an annual value analysis strategic planning retreat and invite your senior management team to participate in this important planning process.
I think you get the idea, it’s your job to show the intrinsic VALUE of your position and this won’t happen unless you start to promote yourself and your value analysis efforts shamelessly, if need be, to ensure that your important position is recognized as mission critical to the success of your healthcare organization. Don’t leave anything to chance!
Are You Really Practicing Value Analysis?
Most hospitals, systems and IDNs have so-called value analysis committees or teams, but are they and you really practicing value analysis? From our experience, most healthcare organizations aren’t really practicing value analysis but doing something else and calling it value analysis.
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. A few years ago I performed a study at the request of one of our clients’ CFOs to determine if his university teaching hospital was really practicing value analysis. I did so by reviewing this hospital’s fully documented savings report for one year.
Here’s what I found: 69% of their savings were price related, i.e. rebates and price savings for a given year. While only 31%, in my opinion, was actually value analysis savings or savings beyond price. However, this is more value analysis savings than most hospitals, so I must congratulate this client for moving in the right direction where 79% of all new savings reside.
My question to you is how much of your savings are really value analysis savings at your hospital? If it’s not 50% or more, then I would suggest that you need to re-evaluate what you are doing.
Your Best Savings are Below the Waterline
Most healthcare organizations have attacked their cost (above the water line) with their GPO, capitation, standardization and custom contracts strategies, which is only yielding them 1%, 2% or 3% savings annually — at most. But did you know, as one of our clients astutely observed, “That it isn’t about price any longer (that is slowly disappearing), it’s about utilization”. Especially since the inflation rate this year could be as high as 3.4%. All of your savings gains are being washed away.
On the other hand, if you attack your utilization savings (below the water line) I can almost guarantee you that you can achieve 7% to 15% savings that aren’t affected by inflation. Value analysis is the key to doing so!
This is due to the fact that your hospital’s staff are generally so swamped that they don’t have time to stop and analyze whether this is the best use of this product, service or technology, is it being wasted or is there a lower cost alternative that could meet this function.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. At one hospital we worked with, the staff was using only a primary IV set. No secondary set had been purchased (yes, you heard right). The staff used these primary sets for every patient for a year without anyone questioning it, until we pointed it out, and this wasn’t a cheap oversight. The hospital spent close to a million dollars it didn’t need to spend until this utilization misalignment was resolved.
No that you know the facts, where do you think you should be focusing your savings efforts: Price or Utilization?
How to Get a Bigger Dose of Creativity
Supply chain professionals have stepped up their savings game due to the effects of the recession of 2009, but are they really creatively driving the last dollar out of your supply chain or just nibbling around the edges? Here are five big ideas that will give you an even bigger dose of creativity to ramp up your savings in these unsettling times:
1. You don’t have all of the good ideas
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the door closed on good ideas because they weren’t invented by the supply chain department. It’s now time to encourage new and better ideas to bubble up from your vendors, staff, co-workers and department heads to bring new inspiration to the job at hand.
2. You need to collaborate more with your peers
Too many supply chain professionals act as if they are lone rangers as opposed to collaborating with their peers in teams to make savings happen. As an individual you can only accomplish a minuscule amount of work on a daily basis, but you can supercharge your savings efforts by teaming up with your peers to get this hard work done.
3. You need to have more diversity in your teams
Teams that act, look and think alike won’t generate new, different and better solutions to your challenges. One little known secret to boosting your creativity is to get people with different backgrounds and expertise to work together as creative contributors.
4. Accept some failures and dry holes as inevitable
Don’t be frustrated by some failures and dry holes that your team(s) will experience in searching out savings, but instead consider them a learning experience. It’s your job to make your team members feel safe, confident and risk averse so that they can filter the best ideas for implementation and kill projects that are leading to a dead end.
5. Give your team members as much responsibility as possible.
Your team members should be given as much responsibility for their projects as possible. They shouldn’t be second guessed by your team leaders or senior management on their findings and recommendations. Most importantly, they need to be given sufficient time and resources for exploration and implementation of their projects.
Getting a bigger dose of creativity for your supply chain initiatives is more about the process you follow to get results — than luck. It involves tapping into the ideas of right people with the right diversity, accepting some failures and dry holes, and giving your team members as much responsibility as possible. Simply stated, it’s not about being a lone ranger!
Good Buying Decisions
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – March 26, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
Good Buying Decisions
Greetings,
We would all like to think that when our value analysis teams make high-quality buying decisions they are logical, unemotional and are anchored in fact. The scientific truth is that most of our VA teams’ buying decisions are filled with emotion and lack rational deliberation. These poor decisions are caused by impatience and the absences of a systematic repeatable decision-making process.
To truly make good buying decisions on every new product, service or technology that you buy, your value analysis teams require the proper framework, wide-ranging information sources, and clear alternatives to compare and contrast the many choices that should be available to them in making good decisions.
It’s all about choices! Good decisions are based on choosing the best alternative from multiple options that your VA team has brainstormed, investigated and cost-justified not just selecting the first-best idea that someone has suggested. They need, at minimum, a second and then a third best-idea in order to avoid making the wrong decision.
For example, if a clinician recommends to your VA team a new cath care kit be purchased since it’s less expensive than your current kit that’s not a good enough reason to buy it, until you have investigated at least two additional kits to ensure you are making the right buying decision.
Good decisions, believe it or not, don’t come naturally. If they did, we would never make a bad decision. If left to chance, our natural human tendencies (haste, empathy, illogical thinking, and emotions) will lead us to bad decisions every time. That’s why good decisions by your VA team(s) should be built on facts, not opinions, should be comprised of multiple choices and use of scientific logic to determine the proper outcomes so you can avoid your team member’s natural tendency to rush to judgment.
Is this the way your VA team(s) is making their decisions today?
avings one penny at a time.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. If you haven’t downloaded our new webinar “Game Changer: Recession 2009” then you will be missing my predictions that can smooth the way for your supply chain survival plan this year.
