The Tasks of Successful Business and its Management

1. 2. 3. 4. Provide a useful product and/or service Assure productive work and worker achievement Be cognizant of Community and Societal Responsibility Make a profit

The Elements of Effective Management

1. 2. 3. 4. Plan (Conceptualize, analyze, develop strategies, budget) Lead (Communicate, motivate, ensure understanding) Organize (Administer, decide, delegate) Control (Establish standards, monitor performance)

The Essence of Planning

1.

First answer three basic questions:

a. Who are our customers? Patients, doctors, nurses, insurance industry, administrators, employees, students, residents, ACOs? b. What do each of our customers deem important? c. What is our business? Routine testing, special testing, services, research, education, inpatient, outpatient, consultation, etc.

2. Then prioritize, because we may not be able to meet all of our customers wants or needs and some wants may be conflicting: a. Which of our customers are most important? b. Which of their need are critical? c. What our business should be depends on how we prioritize After deciding what it is we should be doing, a TEMPLATE FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING is a useful tool to make sure we think of everything: 1. First, re-examine the philosophy, the purpose and the commitment of the enterprise and its Mission and Vision Statements; a hospital laboratory must function within the parameters of the hospital Mission and Vision, but it may have its own as well a. The Mission Statement is a public document that answers Druckers questions: This is our business, these are our customers and this is what we will do to meet their needs. The Mission Statement tells customers what they can expect and serves as a compass for each laboratory employee to use as a guide b. The Vision Statement is a private document which articulates the dreams or hopes or yearnings of the hospital and/or laboratory c. The Goals or Strategic Directions are the finite objectives, targets or end-points to be achieved, based on the Mission and Vision; they should be SMART, i.e. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timed

2. Next, two Assessments are essential: a. What External forces (Regulatory, Socio-Economic, and Technologic Advances) might impact the Plan? b. What is the state of the Market? Are customers needs changing, what is the competition, what is our pricing strategy? 3. The Assessments should identify the Critical issues for the business and then perform a SWOT analysis which examines our Strengths and Weaknesses and our Opportunities and Threats will determine the direction the plan will take a. At this point it may well be necessary to re-evaluate the Mission, Vision and the goals 4. Then, on the basis of the above, we decide what to do. Specifically we might decide to simply continue our operations without any changes, or change some or all of our current activities or downsize or eliminate activities and/or begin new ones. 5. At this point we can distinguish between those things that can be done immediately, those that are planned for the next year and those that are scheduled for the next 3 to 5 years. Again, it may be prudent to review and reassess the goals and plan so that we dont create unrealistic expectations 6. Now the time has come to develop the specifics for each section of the laboratory with detailed objectives, a business plan with financial projections and the personnel, capital and expense budgets. During the budget approval process there may again be the need to re-evaluate and re-examine the overall plan 7. Finally the plan is implemented; but it also must be concurrently and continuously evaluated by performing variance analyses of the budgets and determining whether benchmarks for revenue and productivity established in the business plan are achieved 8. The Strategic Planning Process is an Ongoing Process with continuing revaluations and reassessments at every step of the way. It is a flexible instrument that is continually reformulated and remoulded as conditions change. The step-wise scheme described above is not rigid, but is a logical sequence that may be altered as needed. It is most appropriate for long-range planning, but even when assessing short-range plans, utilization of some of the components of the template, such as Market assessment or SWOT analysis can be most useful. Who should do the planning? 1. The CEO / Director of the business and all the trustworthy members of the family/friends must be intimately involved, certainly in agreeing on the mission and vision and the major goals and directions 2. The CEO must be involved to insure that the planning is synchronized with the major initiatives 3. The manager and the section supervisors need input into the internal assessments, the directions and strategies, into the business plan and budgets if for no other reason than they will be responsible for implementing the plan.

Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to hearing from you. Kind regards.