Value analysis training is a missing link to achieving VA potential, success

How many formal training hours have you and your Value Analysis team had, taught by a Value Analysis expert, in the last five years (zero, three, ten or more)? This is the question my team and I frequently ask VA staff members at value analysis venues. Generally, the answer that we almost always hear is “zero,” or we do VA training ourselves. What would you think if you would ask this same question of your surgeon, an airline pilot, or a policeman or policewoman and this was the same answer (zero) that you received?

Professionals = training

I can think of no professionals that I know of who have received no formal training in their discipline … can you? Well, it’s the same with Value Analysis professionals. How can we call ourselves professionals without having comprehensive value analysis training for our Value Analysis leaders and our VA team members? Larry Miles, the father of value analysis, suggested 40 hours of basic training, and that’s just for starters. We also need continuous learning after our VA basic training, just like any other professional, to keep sharpening our VA skills.

Shortcut to excellence

From my experience, training is a shortcut to excellence in value analysis since you learn to apply proven VA techniques, methods and best practices versus “winging it,” which only leads to you saving very little money or not improving your outcomes. The worst thing you can do is think you know how to train others in VA, just because you say you can. Value analysis is an art and science that takes hours of formal training to perfect and years of experience to master before you can ever consider training others in this discipline. The takeaway here is: There is no substitute for training!

Avoid costly mistakes

We observe, almost weekly, mistakes made by Value Analysis team leaders and their team members caused by the lack of training. For instance, Value Analysis teams will take months or even years to study a product, service or technology when no VA study should take more than 90 days. Big savings are left on the table untouched because VA teams don’t know how to value-stream map a product, service or technology to avoid missing hidden savings or quality improvements. Or the team stops at the first best savings idea it comes upon as opposed to looking for even more lower cost alternatives that are a better fit. These and other costly mistakes are made every day by Value Analysis teams that could have been avoided with formal VA training.

Keep everyone on same page

Value analysis training enables all who have taken it to be on the same page, in step with each other and have a common language. This is important if you want your VA team to communicate easily, clearly and effectively. For instance, if I talk about a functional equivalent product to a VA team that I have trained they all immediately understand what I’m talking about. There is no need for me to have a lengthy discussion to explain this term. It is just part of the value analysis language they were taught in their training sessions that have now become second nature to them.

Enable VA study auditing

The major benefit of value analysis training is that a multi-step process is taught to your team members that should be followed on each one of their value analysis projects. One of the advantages of doing so is that your team leader can audit their projects to see if their project managers overlooked money or quality enhancements because you:

• Skipped a step in your VA process

• Missed a key customer in your VA study

• Used short cuts to speed up your VA project

• Had a misunderstanding of how to conduct the study

With this information your VA team leader can either agree that your project has been completed as planned, or that steps or customers have been missed that need to be retraced or retraining is needed to clear up any misunderstandings on how to conduct a VA study. In practice, this is a quality control check on your VA projects.

Easy onboarding transition

How can one jet passenger plane have two or three pilots over a four-day period who travel thousands of miles and their piloting is seamless? The answer is training! This same principle is the reason you can easily orient and transition the onboarding of new VA team members onto your VA team. The alternative to this training is to have your new team members groping for answers, needing explanations and questioning unfamiliar protocols for weeks or even months while they catch up to the rest of your VA team members. Not a very productive way to do business wouldn’t you agree?

Pushing back on push-back

We, too, often hear from Supply Chain and Value Analysis leaders that they know everything there is to know about value analysis, it takes time and money for VA training which they don’t have, and it’s hard to quantify and justify the return-on-investment. To answer these objections, let me rephrase a quote from trainer Zig Ziglar: “If you think value analysis training is expensive, just think of what it is costing your healthcare organization not to have VA training for your team leaders and their team members?” This is the question you should be asking yourself — not whether you have the knowledge, time, or money to do so. Trust me when I tell you that the VA training will pay for itself in no time!