Raise your hand if you’ve ever taken part in designing a work system? I didn’t think so.

The Baldrige Criteria (6.1a1) ask how you do this. It defines work system as “how the work of your organization is accomplished.” No organization can exist without a work system, which evolves over the life of the organization from the informality of a new venture to the policies and procedures of an established organization. Unless you’re starting a new organization by intentionally designing your work system, the opportunity to do so quickly passes.

Now, that doesn’t mean you won’t redesign your work system as the organization grows and changes. I think that’s what the Criteria should focus on, the redesigning and improving and not the designing.

Applicants tend to punt this question. Here’s how 2008 recipient Poudre Valley Health System answered it: “PVHS designs and innovates its work systems to achieve its world-class vision and meet its customer requirements through the Strategy Development & Deployment process.” That’s it, and that’s about as much as most organizations offer.

Almost the same argument can be made for another question (6.2a1) about how you design your work processes. While it’s true that new processes may be created to meet new needs, the vast majority of an organization’s processes already exist. The focus, therefore, is on redesign and improvement rather than on designing new processes. Yet the Criteria ask three rather detailed questions about something most organizations rarely do.

I admit to selfish reasons for bringing this up: I hate trying to answer these questions. Here’s hoping they’ll eventually find their way out of the Criteria.

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