Define: What choice are we making, and what would a useful outcome look like?
Write the choice, its boundaries, and the evidence needed to decide.
About VMBARS
A philosophy made practical through repeatable work.
Value Maximization Benefiting ALL Relevant Stakeholders asks us to examine not only the outcome, but the people and mechanisms that make it possible.
The Decision Loop
Five questions to carry into the work.
The loop is a way to think, act, learn, and return to a better-defined choice. It is not a promise that complexity disappears.
Map: Who can affect the decision, and who will feel its consequences?
Name the people, incentives, dependencies, constraints, and missing perspectives.
Confront: What are we assuming—and what would we rather not face?
Identify incompatible priorities, costs shifted to others, weak evidence, and power imbalances.
Design: What response changes the mechanism, not just the message?
Choose an action, assign ownership, and explain how it is expected to create value.
Test: What changed, for whom, and what does that tell us?
Compare the result with the intended outcome, look for unintended costs, and revise the decision.
“ALL” makes the hard parts visible.
It does not mean everyone wins equally. It means people materially affected by a decision should not be ignored without a reason.
Consider a practice trying to improve access. More scheduled visits may help the business, but not if the change creates unmanageable work for staff or longer waits for patients. The useful question is what mechanism improves access while respecting capacity—and what evidence would show it.
A decision is stronger when it names who receives the benefit, who contributes, who holds power, who carries the cost, and whose perspective is missing.
Put the questions on a canvas →The person behind the work.
Mallet Y. Njonkem brings experience across healthcare investing, private equity, research, and community leadership to the questions behind VMBARS.
Meet Mallet