The BVA Toolkit is a template that you customize to your particular situation. Use this step-by-step approach to get your planning rolling. Follow the links to toolkit items contained elsewhere on this website.

HOW TO GET STARTED
At its core, a business value assessment should be something that your business customer finds valuable. Therefore, your first step in launching an assessment is to discuss with your business customer their ideas for an assessment.

• Look through the BVA case examples, which describe how other program managers partnered with a business customer to measure results.

  Use these brief “real-life” examples of BVA to jump-start and think through your own idea for an assessment. 

  You may also find the case examples useful for illustrating to a business customer your basic idea for an assessment.
  
  
• Use the Assessment Planning Worksheet as a conversation and planning guide for your initial planning conversation with your business customer. 
  
  Ask for about 30 to 45 minutes to discuss the assessment.  You may even wish to email the worksheet to them as part of your meeting request.
  
  
• You may also find the BVA brochure helpful for introducing the BVA concept to your business customer.  See also What People Are Saying for testimonial from program managers and employers about the BVA tools.

After discussing your business customer’s ideas and obtaining their commitment to a business value assessment, you will probably have some questions. Consult the following resources:

• Review the planning guidelines in the Handbook, Chapter 1: Planning Your Business Value Assessment.
  
  Pages 12-18 of the Handbook provide more detail about the items summarized on the Assessment Planning Worksheet and additional conversation and planning tips.
  
  
• Look at the Frequently Asked Questions on this website for answers to frequently asked questions, and to submit your own questions and comments.
  
  You may also find two of WSI’s Update publications helpful: Update #1 and Update #3.

USING THE EXCEL TOOL
The BVA Excel Tool is a simple package of forms and reports for gathering and analyzing the employee data and cost information that typical business customers find meaningful.

Consider the Excel Tool as your first option for business value assessment, if your business customer is interested in, for example: retention and turnover costs and savings, and employee skill impacts on business productivity and costs and revenue.

• View the 10-minute BVA Excel Tool Recording to understand the key features and functionalities of the Tool, and how it might look when put to use. NOTE: Flash is required to play back this recording. If you do not have Flash installed, you will be prompted to install it before playback begins.


• Look at the Handbook, Chapter 2: Using The Excel Tool, beginning on page 23, for detailed Excel Tool instructions.


• If you used the Assessment Planning Worksheet with your business customer, you discussed most of the planning topics needed to start data gathering for the Excel Tool.

USING QUESTIONNAIRES
Your business customer may not generate or collect data in their typical operations, which will suffice for business value assessment. Consider this example:

You provide refresher courses on hospital procedures, computer applications and workplace communications, with the goal to improve productivity among front-line hospital staff. You and the HR rep look at what data are gathered in the hospital workplace, to see whether you can get data for the Excel Tool. You find no data from clinical or HR systems that will help see whether productivity increased. So, the HR rep suggests, “Can we ask employees if training impacted productivity, for example, ask supervisors whether it affected how they spend their time?”

When new data must be collected from workers, supervisors or customers to answer important questions about the results of a workforce development service, you and your business customer may think about using questionnaires, a.k.a. surveys.

• Review the questionnaire planning guidelines in the Handbook, Chapter 3: Using Questionnaires, beginning on page 52.
  
  Questionnaires can be a viable business value assessment method for different circumstances, but are often not as compact or tidy as data collection from existing forms or systems, such as that encompassed by the Excel Tool. Review the Handbook for important considerations for using questionnaires.
  
  
• To get the planning process going with your business customer, you might begin with some sample questionnaires that were used by others. Some questionnaires are accompanied by case examples that describe the questionnaire’s context and results.


• Use the Questionnaire Planning Worksheet to jumpstart and organize your planning and your conversations with your business customer. In particular, Sections 5 and 6 point to typical sticking-points that you should discuss up-front.


• Look at the Handbook for more detail about the items summarized on the Questionnaire Planning Worksheet.

BVA TRAINING
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