Value Management: How It Works

Value Management is all about the Things That Matter, and there are lots of possible starting points.

However, the most common starting point is a three step process to begin orienting around what matters most:

1. Scoping and Surfacing the Things That Matter
2. Capturing and Refining the Things That Matter
3. Measuring and Progressing the Things That Matter

This three step process of engagement, motivation and change is supported by – and can be entered into by any of – several complementary diagnostics:

• The Symptoms of What’s Not Working, which focuses at a high level on when Things That Matter aren’t working (including misalignment on what the Things That Matter are) – loosely “away from the negative”.
• The Relationship Issues Diagnostic, which looks more specifically at commercial relationships and goes into more detail about the issues that affect them – again loosely “away from the negative”.
• The Contractual Relationship Diagnostic, which explores in detail the main areas that complement the traditional focus of contracts, aiming to widen the focus to support the relationship.
• The Value Vectors, which focus on “values” to pursue and their associated outcomes, both of which relate to Things That Matter – loosely “towards the positive”.

The diagnostics complement each other as follows:

• Symptoms and Issues can indicate where there is a lack of clarity and alignment around underlying values and goals.
• Focusing on the relationship aspects of a Contractual Relationship can expose underlying challenges as well as synergies around Value Vectors.

• Value Vectors can indicate where symptoms and issues are likely to develop.

The whole spectrum from away-from-the-negative to towards-the-positive is therefore covered, and in all cases, the diagnostics offer a route into the Three Step Process.

Most of the time, clients start with the Symptoms of What’s Not Working diagnostic, the Relationship Issues Diagnostic or the Contractual Relationship Diagnostic:

• With the first two, this is usually as there are known issues to resolve – a necessary step ahead of being able to focus more positively on progress – but it can sometimes be used to look at what might go wrong, or sometimes to check everything really is as OK as it seems.
• With the third, there is an intention to begin with the operational and work back to fundamentals.

However the three step process is run, though, there are several options – Value Journeys – that customers can pursue during it or afterwards, depending on the situation and what has been uncovered.