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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 E-Zine- September 26, 2006
Listen to the Podcast here!
Robert T.
Yokl
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
Let’s Talk About The Power Of Supply Chain Benchmarking!
Of all of the skills that I have acquired in my 27 years as a supply chain consultant the most powerful and useful skill has been my ability to benchmark. It has enabled me and my firm to determine where the “gaps” (e.g. cost management, cost avoidance, productivity, quality, utilization, etc.) are in any and all healthcare organizations quantitatively and qualitatively. Then to design a solution in many situations through benchmarking again to solve my client’s supply chain challenges. This is a proficiency that you need to master if you truly want to be successful as a supply chain professional!
Benchmarking will show you the way when you don’t have answers to your challenges such as “is there more savings to be achieved in my supply chain”? And then show you where these savings reside when you find “gaps” with your supply chain management benchmarking studies.
Your Partner in Supply Chain Savings,
Robert T. Yokl
President & Chief Value Strategist
P.S. If you want to learn more on how to effectively and accurately benchmark, you will find my Podcast “Benchmarking For Peak Performance” at my new blog www.savingsbeyondprice.com by entering into the search engine the key word “benchmarking”. That will give you the basics of this “must know” methodology.
Is Brainstorming Becoming Fruitless And Frustrating At Your Healthcare Organization?
“The Quality And Quantity Of Your Cost And Quality Ideas Depends On How You Employ The New Rules For Benchmarking”
In 1941 Alex Osborn, an advertising executive, created the technique that we call today “brainstorming” to get the best ideas for any problem or challenge our organization is facing. To “Think Up” was the original term Osborn used to describe his new group idea generation process; no criticism, go for quantity, build on ideas and encourage wild ideas.
However, since 1941 academic studies have shown that people brainstorming alone generate more ideas (per person) in a 10-minute period than those in a group brainstorming activity. The reason for this anomaly is that there is a “productivity loss” in group brainstorming when people take turns talking and therefore can’t churn out ideas as fast because they “tune out” for a few minutes to think about what is being said.
Robert I. Sutton, a Professor at Stanford Engineering School, tells us that if your brainstorming activities are becoming fruitless and frustrating because of this “productivity loss” or lapses in brainstorming continuity, you need to apply his “Eight New Rules for Brilliant Brainstorming”:
1. Use Brainstorming To Combine And Extend Ideas, Not Just Harvest Them.
Find ways to build on existing ideas or your results will be no better than the old-fashioned employee suggestion box. This will require you to squeeze out even better ideas when one seems to be ideal by pushing and pulling new and better ideas out of your participants until they are drenched in sweat.
2. Don’t Bother If People Live In Fear.
If your brainstorming sessions include teasing, humiliation or mockery of people’s ideas then you need to eliminate these negative behaviors before you can produce any really meaningful ideas.
3. Do Individual Brainstorming Before And After Group Sessions.
Building in time in your brainstorming model for people to think and learn about the topic before your meetings and to reflect about what happened after the session can increase the quality and quantity of your ideas.
4. Brainstorming Sessions Are Worthless Unless Ideas Lead To Action.
If your culture is averse to making decisions and poor at executing them, then brainstorming is really a “time waster”, not a productive process for you.
5. Brainstorming Requires Skill And Experience Both To Do – And Especially – Facilitate.
Facilitation of brainstorming sessions is not a job for amateurs. It is a skill that takes months and even years to master.
6. A Good Brainstorming Session Is Competitive – In The Right Way.
Competition is good, but collaboration is even better for high performance brainstorming. So don’t give bonuses for the best ideas in brainstorming or you will drain the creativity out of your participants.
7. Brainstorming Sessions Can Be Used For More Than Just Generating Ideas.
Brainstorming is great for generating new ideas, but it is also a good place to listen, learn and educate your employees on many diverse topics that will make them better employees in the long run.
8. Follow The Rules, Or Don’t Call It Brainstorming.
The worst brainstorming happens when the rules aren’t followed or are ignored. When people spend 30 minutes rambling, are distracted by phone calls or worst yet, dominate the session with their own ideas, this is really a “productivity loss”!
Brainstorming has a 65-year history of success in generating new and imaginative ideas in every industry and in every discipline on the planet. Now that the academic research on this topic is being disseminated to us in the trenches, we now have an opportunity to re-invent our brainstorming sessions with these new methods and practices in mind. We will then be able to move to the next level of savings performance with our value analysis methodology by applying them rigorously and religiously.
DID YOU KNOW…
That a Six Sigma Master Black Belts are Six Sigma experts that are responsible for Six Sigma training, coaching and implementation within an organization. Master Black Belt primary responsibilities include training and mentoring of black belts and green belts, helping to prioritize, select and charter high-impact projects, maintaining the integrity of the Six Sigma measurements, improvements and tollgates, and developing, maintaining and revising Six Sigma training materials.
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