Value Management

Our Value Management team understand that every client is unique and use value management as a tool and not as a turn-key solution to every client problem. Value management is a framework for all aspects of business improvement and has a proven track record of over 50 years in industry, and commerce.

Over the course of several workshops we will help you to establish what you want from a project, its viability and how it will be implemented.

Keeping you and the project stakeholders informed and on-board every step of the way is important to us so that we can help you deliver exactly what project you need. 

Once the project has been successfully implemented, follow-up workshops will be arranged to ensure that the project implementation is going according to plan.

Value management is a technique aimed at eliciting the purpose, objective or functions of something, be it a management process, mechanical component or a project.

We view value management and risk management as two sides of the same coin.  In our experience, one of the major risks a project can face is unclear definition of objectives.  Equally, from a value management perspective, the uncertainty involved must be one of the key criteria in deciding in how to achieve a particular objective.

Project Kick-start

One of the most difficult times on a project is right at the start, when the project team is mobilising with staff joining at different times, with different levels of understanding, knowledge and experience.

A rapid way to ensure a common level of understanding is to hold a facilitated Kick-start workshop, involving the whole project team, and where appropriate, other key stakeholders (e.g. the client, key sub-contractors etc). The aim of this workshop is:

• Generate a common understanding of the objectives of the project.
• Disseminate information about the project, the roles of different team members etc.
• Identify critical issues which are a priority to achieve success.
• Innovate better ways of delivering the project

A key by-product of the Kick-start workshop is team-building and communication within the project team.

Project Aims and Objectives

When a project involves multiple internal or external stakeholders, they can each have a different view as to what the project goals and objectives are, which in turn can affect which solution they would most like to see. Since late changes in design to accommodate the wants of key stakeholders are particularly expensive, a more efficient approach is to develop a consensus from the key stakeholders as to the project aims, and evolve that into a set of specific objectives.

These specific objectives can be taken to as detailed a level as the stakeholders require, and the clear benefit to the project team is that they provide a clear and well documented description of what the project has to deliver.

Options Appraisal

As projects move from being a "bright idea" through feasibility and on towards implementation, the project team will generate and evaluate many options at many different levels within the project.  Sometimes it can be difficult, or perhaps not appropriate, for the project team to select a specific option, particularly where the options are radically different. 

In this situation, we can provide support through an Option Appraisal process.  Revolving around one or more facilitated workshops, we help the project team to come up with the criteria by which to appraise the options and then to carry out the appraisal on the possible options.

Lessons Learned

Projects are by definition transitory organisations, so it is not easy for these organisations to capture the knowledge that has been gained, collectively, by the project team and stakeholders.

The purpose of Lessons Learned is to bring together any insights gained during a project that can be usefully applied on future projects.  In many ways this resembles a risk management exercise, except that instead of looking at what might happen, it looks at what did happen.

It is important that Lessons Learned are carried out very soon after the completion of a project or project stage, so that the knowledge is fresh, and it should involve the project team and key stakeholders, as they often have different perspectives as to what happened on a project.