The objective sounds clear until different stakeholders define success differently.
For people accountable for consequential decisions
Turn values into decisionsthat hold up.
VMBARS is a developing decision discipline for making value, stakeholders, tradeoffs, mechanisms, and evidence explicit before success is declared.
VMBARS
Value Maximization Benefiting ALL Relevant Stakeholders
ALL means materially affected stakeholders cannot be ignored without a defensible reason. It does not mean equal wins.
What VMBARS is
A philosophy made useful through a repeatable decision loop.
VMBARS is being built as an applied ideas studio: a philosophy, a practical method, reusable tools, and a growing record of what changes when the method meets a real decision.
The direct user is a person or team with agency and accountability for a choice that affects other people, institutions, or systems. The framework does not replace domain expertise or judgment. It makes their assumptions and consequences easier to examine.
When to use it
Use VMBARS when the easy answer hides the real decision.
It is most useful before commitment, while the objective, mechanism, or evidence can still change.
A visible gain may shift cost, risk, or lost agency somewhere less visible.
The values are compelling, but ownership, incentives, safeguards, or evidence remain vague.
The method
Three questions open the field. Five moves turn the answer into work.
The entry questions slow down premature certainty. The Decision Loop then converts the value claim into a mechanism, evidence plan, and next decision.
What are we really maximizing?
Name the result, the horizon, and the constraints before choosing a metric or defending an answer.
Who is materially affected?
Map who benefits, contributes, bears cost or risk, holds power, and may be missing from the room.
What would make the value real?
Translate the intention into mechanisms, ownership, safeguards, evidence, and a next review point.
The VMBARS Decision Loop
Define. Map. Confront. Design. Test and learn.
Define
Name the decision and desired value.
Clarify the choice, success, horizon, constraints, and uncertainty.
Map
See the stakeholder system.
Identify beneficiaries, contributors, risk-bearers, power, dependencies, and absent voices.
Confront
Make the hard parts visible.
Surface conflicts, externalities, assumptions, uncertainty, and possible harm.
Design
Turn intention into a mechanism.
Specify incentives, resources, ownership, governance, safeguards, and action.
Test and learn
Define evidence before success.
Set measures, failure conditions, review points, and the next decision.
The boundary
“ALL” is a discipline for tradeoffs, not a promise of harmony.
Relevant stakeholders must be considered. Their interests will not always be equal, compatible, or fully satisfiable.
VMBARS requires
- Material stakeholders are identified before success is declared.
- Power, tradeoffs, externalities, and avoidable harm are surfaced.
- Exclusions and compromises have a defensible rationale.
- Claims are tied to mechanisms, evidence, and review.
VMBARS does not promise
- Every stakeholder wins equally or at the same time.
- Conflict disappears because the right values were named.
- One metric represents every form of value.
- A framework replaces expertise, judgment, or accountability.
Start with a tool
Diagnose quickly. Work deeply only where needed.
The tools are deliberately separate. One reveals where the decision is weak; the other creates room to do the work.
10-minute diagnostic · one page
VMBARS Decision Quick Scan
Five questions expose where a consequential decision remains underspecified. Use it before committing resources or declaring value creation.
Download the Quick ScanWorking session · two pages
VMBARS Working Canvas
A writeable workspace for mapping stakeholders, confronting tradeoffs, designing mechanisms, and defining evidence, ownership, and review.
Download the Working CanvasApplied learning
Useful before universal.
The method should earn credibility by showing what changed, what failed, and what happened next.
Every application should capture the original decision, newly surfaced stakeholders or risks, the mechanism adopted, intended evidence, the next review, and unresolved harm or uncertainty.
Current application territories
Healthcare and investing
Pressure-test a thesis across patients, providers, operators, investors, regulators, and the care system, with explicit evidence and failure conditions.
Organizations and leadership
Distinguish an announced change from one people can adopt, operate, trust, and sustain after the launch moment passes.
Relationships and contribution
Respond to a real signal with useful work, reduce friction, and let contribution precede extraction or a larger ask.
Incentives and underused capacity
Examine how participation, exchange, governance, and observable results might emerge inside a bounded real-world system.
About the builder
VMBARS is a platform. Mallet is its builder and first practitioner.
Mallet Y. Njonkem earned degrees in mechanical engineering and economics from Yale. His career has spanned investment banking at UBS and private equity investing at Kohlberg & Company, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and Ariel Alternatives, with a particular focus on healthcare, technology, and organizations.
Alongside investing, his work includes scientific research, education, community-building, and service through Yale's For Humanity campaign, the Yale Alumni Fund, and SEO's National Leadership Council. He is now completing premedical coursework as he prepares for a transition to medicine.
A bounded invitation
Bring one real decision.
VMBARS is being tested selectively with leaders, builders, and domain experts. Send the choice in front of you, the stakeholders affected, and what makes the decision difficult.
connect@vmbars.com