A Baldrige Assessment

Many organizations new to the Baldrige model choose to conduct an internal self-assessment as their first step. They can build consensus among senior leaders and other key influencers for the value of such an assessment. They can set their own deadlines. They can determine the nature of the assessment report. They can pick their own evaluator(s) to assess the report and provide feedback.

In my experience, the most effective assessments depend on senior leaders' commitment to the process. When senior leaders value the assessment, they support the efforts of team members to do the research and write the report. When too many senior leaders dismiss the process, they make the assessment a low priority, often dragging the process out well past the self-imposed deadline. Team members quickly learn not to put too much effort into the assessment, the final product suffers, and the full benefit of the process is lost.

I've seen assessments of all sizes and shapes but the best tend to follow the Baldrige guidelines. Too short and the document is very hard to evaluate with any detail. Too long and it's hard for evaluators to determine what's really important.

The value of the assessment also depends on the skills of the evaluator or evaluators. Large companies often draw upon an internal pool of Baldrige experts, while smaller organizations hire outside Baldrige evaluators for the job. The feedback report they produce should include overall strengths and opportunities to improve, strengths and opportunities to improve for each Category and Item, as well as overall, Category, and Item scores.

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