5 Added Values of the Baldrige Process

This is a guest article by Paul Grizzell. If you want to contribute an article to Baldrige.com, check out the guidelines here.

When visiting with senior leaders about the value of embarking on a Baldrige journey, a frequently used phrase is, “It’s not about the Award.”  At that point, the discussion moves to writing an application, and the sense of leaders is: “We’re applying for an Award!”  How do we convince leaders that there is value within the Baldrige process above and beyond applying for Baldrige or a state or local quality award?

Leaders need to understand what value the Baldrige process provides if it’s not just about the award, especially considering the investment of time involved in developing a 50-page application.

In my experience, five “added values” of the Baldrige process demonstrate the benefit of developing a Baldrige application—even if you never submit the application to an award process.

1. Accountability Tool. The structure of the Baldrige process forces accountability.  When senior leaders take responsibility for a particular Baldrige category, they “own” the linkage among the three components of the application:

• Organizational Profile: What is important to the organization?
• Process categories: Based on what is important, what do we do, and how do we do it?
• Results category: Now that we’ve done it, were we successful?

2. Sustainability Tool. The Baldrige process helps document how business is done at the organization.  The departure of a senior leader doesn’t have to mean we start all over again.  The application describes how the organization operates; a new senior leader…

Experts Tell You What to Fix

People ask why an organization should apply for the Baldrige Award or a state award based on Baldrige. There are three very good reasons:

1. Answering the Criteria questions will give you a new and deeper understanding of how your organization works—or doesn’t work.
2. Getting feedback from the Baldrige or state program will help you identify strengths you can build upon and opportunities for improvement.
3. Acting on what you learn during #1 and #2 will make you a better organization.

I described the application process in an earlier article. In this article, I want to discuss the feedback you receive when you submit an application.

First, a quick overview of what happens to a Baldrige application after you submit it. (State programs follow a similar process.) Trained examiners are assigned to evaluate and comment on the application. A team of examiners then reviews the application and observations by conference call to reach consensus on your strengths, opportunities for improvement, and scores. If the Panel of Judges does not select your organization for a site visit, one of the examiners on the consensus team produces your feedback report. If you do receive a site visit, the site visit team leader finalizes your feedback report after the judges decide who should receive the Award.

The feedback report begins by identifying the key themes both for the process Items, which are Categories 1 through 6, and the results Item, which is Category 7. It lists your most important strengths or outstanding practices and your most significant opportunities, concerns, vulnerabilities, and…

Blessed with OFIs

At the latest Quest for Excellence, an annual event where the previous year’s Baldrige Award recipients discuss their management systems, the leaders of the three winning organizations answered audience questions for about a half-hour. The YouTube video of that panel discussion is here.

The plant manager for Cargill Corn Milling was asked how his organization prioritizes the opportunities for improvement (OFIs) it gets from the Baldrige feedback and from Cargill’s Business Excellence process. He noted that they got a total of 131 OFIs from the 2008 feedback reports. Their leadership group used a priority matrix to rank the OFIs based on their importance to Cargill Corn Milling’s mission, vision, and purpose. They then decided to work on the top three OFIs this year.

For people new to Baldrige, a couple of things may be surprising about this. First is the fact that a Baldrige Award recipient got 131 OFIs. What you have to remember is that recipients typically score in the 650 to 750 point range. The missing 250-350 points are OFIs. There are no “perfect” organizations.

The second surprise is that, out of 131 OFIs, the organization is working on just three. I think that’s misleading. In my experience, improving performance on those top three OFIs will lead to improvement on several others. For example, addressing an OFI that questions how systematically you improve your work processes will also address all of the OFIs in other Categories that raised that issue for individual processes. Besides, no organization has the resources to tackle…