Ten years ago, the Baldrige program began posting the application summaries of Award recipients online. Most of these summaries are the actual applications submitted by the organizations with any confidential information removed. You can access the 44 application summaries online here.

This is what you can learn:

• What an Award-winning application looks like. Unless you’ve read the application of a Baldrige Award recipient, you have no idea how comprehensive and detailed it is.
• How similar organizations respond to the Criteria. And similar is close enough. You’re not likely to find a soulmate in the list of 44, but you are likely to find an organization you can learn from.

• How to respond to specific Criteria questions. If you’re in charge of answering a question, Area, or Item, start by reading the relevant section of one or more application summaries. Just keep in mind that the farther back you go, the more likely it is that those organizations may have answered somewhat different questions than the questions in the current Criteria.

• What a good response looks like. Pay attention to how they describe processes, the graphics and tables they use, and the results graphs they present.

• What best practices you can use. If you’re looking to improve a particular area, read how Baldrige Award recipients have done it and you may save yourself some time while you adapt a proven process to your organization’s needs.

If you want to learn from the management systems of high-performing organizations, consider these application summaries a true national treasure.

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