By Michael Pearsall, P.Eng., CVS, CVM, FICE, FEC
This month, through a series of different sources, I started questioning if I am doing enough to keep Value Engineering (VE) at the forefront or if I was taking it for granted.
The first major influence was planning for the 2019 Value Summit. As I noted last month, we are looking to have a dedicated Transportation Track (see more on that below). The success of a Transportation Track relies heavily on Department of Transportation (DOT) participation, so I took off my VE hat and put on my more frequent DOT hat and started thinking about what would encourage more DOTs to participate in SAVE International.
There are many influences affecting each and every DOT, but a lot are common. One major common influence is that none of us have the resources (staff, time or money) that we would like, all of which in turn often leads to reduced travel and conference participation. I’m not looking for any sympathy, but we had a government change this spring and I’m sure many of you can empathise with how easy it is for any new government to campaign on reducing government expenditures where easy targets are. However, as I thought about our current situation it became clearer to me that if I could spend resources on one thing it would be VE. When budgets are the tightest it is particularly important to keep getting the most benefit from my resources.
Secondly, I was approached in almost an emergency situation to help kick-start a project to develop new corporate performance measures. VE is just a part of what I do, but of course it was what this particular problem needed. We had some big challenges to overcome as we were given a ridiculously short amount of workshop time and told that even though we needed to fully involve people from up to 1,400 km away we couldn’t incur one cent of travel costs. Through technology, a strict schedule, some whip cracking and help facilitating we accomplished our goal. However, it was crystal clear to me that without VE this would not have been possible – yet I took VE for granted as it is so commonplace in my everyday life. As always there were people involved who had never seen the process before and some walked away amazed. I need to follow up with them now and keep momentum for more VE.
Lastly, a good VE friend from another transportation agency was working on a pitch to his executives and he asked me for some guidance. I have always found I often learn more when someone asks me for help. I’m sure almost every VE practitioner has a short VE primer deck they keep on hand and a practiced “elevator speech” or short pitch, but when was the last time you truly listened to your own? Is it current and up to date? Does it truly resonate with the intended audience? Sadly, I have caught myself a few times trotting out some pretty old and tired material or stuff not relevant to the audience. I have found VE to be pretty dynamic and applicable to countless situations, yet I struggle to showcase this regularly.
What has happened in your context in the last month to reinforce the need and value of VE in transportation?
Just a quick reminder that at the 2019 Value Summit we have the opportunity to have a dedicated track for transportation. However, that will only happen if you step forward with your success stories and papers on transportation related VE. Click here for more information.
Until the next issue I would like to continue to encourage any transportation professional out there who would like to share their stories to contact me at mike.pearsall@ontario.ca.
Hope to see you all in Portland at the 2019 Value Summit!
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