By Jill Woller, CVS-Life, FSAVE, and Travis Godsoe, VMA
It is both remarkable and reassuring that humans have such a capacity to be curious, to learn, and to find inspiration. Even with the experience gained through attendance at many SAVE conferences over the years, this most recent Value Summit provided a great deal to refresh the VM spirit in all of us.
Many of the sessions and speakers expounded on familiar themes, and shared case studies to reinforce the effectiveness of VM in both manufacturing and construction.
A few highlights of note struck a theme. It started with the pre-Summit workshop titled “Stretching the Value Methodology” led by Randy Barber and Jessica Hickey. They used VM to help a client analyze options relating to a major business decision, where function analysis language enabled everyone to redefine the issues, leading to a consensus solution.
The Keynote Speakers were both excellent, but the talk by Meghan Johnson about intergenerational work styles and differences was particularly insightful, as well as humorous. She encouraged us to appreciate the diversity of today’s work teams, and to see how the challenge of doing so presents an opportunity to add new dimensions to our own perspective.
Ann Jamison’s talk on “Expanding the Use of VM” encouraged the application of VM to early project planning and definition, as a tool for stakeholder alignment. Finally, another example was the opportunity highlighted by Carlene Wong in “VE for Kids” which challenged us to see VM function language as a good fit for teachers to use in their effort to encourage STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) thinking skills in students.
This month, as we resume our separate paths, let’s take the energy and enthusiasm of the recent Summit as a call to see more opportunities to use VM in alternative ways and to turn the perception of VM around from a deductive to an additive tool.
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