Baldrige Process
Conducting Collaborative Assessments
As the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program celebrates its 25th year, it continues to evolve to meet the needs of key stakeholders. Recently, the program announced that it will offer Collaborative Assessments as a new service. The announcement states that this assessment against the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence will provide timely, actionable feedback to be used immediately to improve organizational performance. While not explicitly stated, the service seems to be targeting organizations that may be new to the Baldrige Criteria.
So you may be wondering, “What is a Collaborative Assessment?” Good question!
The collaborative assessment is a proven method that has been used in multiple organizations worldwide. It is not a new concept; this author has been successfully implementing this approach to assessment for over 15 years. In general, it is an event-focused approach to efficiently complete an assessment in a short period of time. The approach uses the input from subject matter experts with assistance from criteria and assessment experts. The participants collaborate to identify the vital few strengths and opportunities for improvement within the organization. These strengths can be used as input to generate an application for a state or national quality award. The opportunities for improvement can be prioritized and converted into action plans for improving …
4Apr2013 | Er Ralston | 0 comments | Continued
Baldrige Fits In Everywhere!
A recent FastCompany article entitled “How the Most Successful Brands Take a Peek into the Future” wound itself around a handful of facets that a successful futures-insights company should embrace. The author, Mark McNeilly, wrote about organizations having the ability to take advantage of the future by listening to their customers, competitors, and comparables. Perhaps inadvertently, he has summarized a number of Baldrige criteria questions, and in doing so gave yet another example of how Baldrige can be applied in any organization, regardless of size or industry.
Real-time marketing requires a team of coordinated, aware, and proactive individuals. With the mindset of out-performing competitors, most companies have turned to social media to try and get a better grasp of their who their customers are, and engage in “culture conversations.” McNeilly writes about Oreo’s use of Twitter during the Super Bowl blackout: “Within the hour the tweet had been RT’d over 10,000 times. Oreo was successful at executing their marketing virtually instantaneously because its social media trackers, agency creatives, and marketing execs were all co-located.” In Baldrige lingo, what Oreo did answered the questions in section 3.1 (VOTC) referring to using social media to listen to, interact with, and observe customers, as well as section 3.2 (Customer Engagement) …
19Mar2013 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedUsing Quality Awards as a System Assessment Tool
Many organizations use the criteria from national quality awards for the benefit of getting a thorough organizational assessment, often with no intent of even applying for award recognition. There are various methods that can be used to complete an assessment, based upon many factors, including the size and geography of the organization, the number of facilities, and the availability of internal expertise to conduct an assessment.
Written Responses
Without completing a formal application, organizations can use a question-and-answer approach to respond to the criteria question from an awards program. There could be multiple responses for each question if more than one input is desired for the response. Some more advanced formats for written responses could seek more probing information for each question. For example, a Baldrige-based written response questionnaire may be formatted to seek a specific response for approach, deployment, learning, and integration for each process-related question. This provides richer information for the purposes of scoring the application using the awards process scoring guidelines.
Survey
This approach can be used to gather assessment input from a large number of people. Questions are designed to gather the collective input of the performance of the organization as it relates to the awards criteria. The Baldrige National Quality program provides a free survey …
6Mar2013 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedBegin at the Beginning: The Organizational Profile
Whether you’re ready to write your application for the Baldrige Award, or you’re just dabbling in the criteria, creating an organizational profile of your company is the place to begin. It’s like a summary of sorts, and can help you identify your performance gaps at an early stage. If your Baldrige application can be compared to a thesis, your organizational profile is the introduction.
If you’re scratching your head still and asking, “So, where do I start?” like those folks in the Cars.com commercials that inevitably chase a line across the floor to a dealership, you might need someone to point you in the right direction. You’ve come to the right place.
Start at the top. What does your company offer? Hopefully, that’s an easy one to answer. Why is what you’re selling important? If nobody needs or wants it, nobody will buy it. How do you deliver? Obviously, a hospital would answer those questions very differently than a large retail store, so clarity and detail are important. What are your mission and vision for the company? Usually these answers will revolve around the core competencies of your company, or its strengths and areas of greatest expertise. These strengths are what set you apart from your competitors, …
29Jan2013 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedHappy 25th to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award!!
“The Baldrige Award Program is still one of the best in the entire maelstrom of awards. There’s the Nobel Prize, the Oscars, and all that, but the Baldrige Aware is right up there! It’s inspiring. It’s exciting. It makes us proud.”
-Letitia Baldrige, etiquette expert, former chief of staff for Jacqueline Kennedy, and sister of Malcolm Baldrige
In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, we’ve pulled 25 questions from the Criteria that we think most people would like to know about their company. Would you like your organization to answer some of these questions? Has your company considered applying for the Baldrige Award, or even implementing the Criteria? If not, consider the 10 Steps to World Class.
- What are the key elements that engage your workforce in accomplishing your mission and vision?
- How do senior leaders create a workforce culture that delivers a consistently positive customer experience and fosters customer engagement?
- How do senior leaders include a focus on creating and balancing value for customers and other stakeholders in their organizational performance expectations?
- How do you evaluate the performance of your senior leaders, including the chief executive?
- How do you address any adverse impacts on society of your products and operations?
- How does
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Quality and Sustainability: An Introduction
Organizations large and small that have gained success in the past and want to thrive in the future are being challenged to find – and capitalize upon – opportunities to meet their own strategic goals while also meeting societal needs. More and more organizations are being encouraged to look at the entire landscape unfolding before them, from a perspective of a balanced array of outcomes characterized by the new “triple bottom line” of people, planet, and profits (Savitz and Weber 2006). As we go forward into the twenty-first century, organizations cannot focus only on profits and their bottom line; they also must take into consideration people and our planet. Quality Management has always taken people into consideration; now as we go forward a third dimension has been added that encompasses environment sustainability and stewardship.
Quality and environmental sustainability are becoming increasingly interdependent. Organizations of all sizes are looking at ways to increase efficiencies and productivity without compromising the integrity of the environment. As a result, as we see it, there is a paradigm shift evolving within the quality management arena as quality and environmental sustainability are merging toward a partnership. This partnership makes perfect sense; the performance excellence we strive for in a business environment extends to the larger, natural …
2Jul2012 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedBuild a World-Class Management System
One proven way you can differentiate your organization from the competition is by making its management system better than anyone else’s. And the best way to do that is by integrating the Baldrige model.
Organizations that integrate Baldrige see improvements in key results across the board. To see a sampling of those results, click here. They build world-class, sustainable organizations. And their approach is available to you and your organization.
That approach is to evaluate your management system using the Baldrige Criteria. The evaluation can be an internal self-assessment or an application for a local, state, or national award. I describe the evaluation options here.
If you are interested in a Baldrige evaluation, contact me to discuss those options for your organization. Between the experts at Juran, we’ve researched and written dozens of Baldrige assessments, including the applications of many Baldrige Award winners and state award winners, in addition to having two past Examiners on the team. We can help you determine the best way to integrate Baldrige at your organization.
For some, that process begins with Baldrige training. Juran offers training for senior leadership teams, managers, and employees on the Baldrige Criteria, the assessment process, and how to integrate Baldrige at all levels of an organization.
We …
28Jun2012 | Tom Huizenga | 0 comments | Continued
