For Organizations: Assessment Process

Our assessment evaluates organizational approaches (processes), the extent to which they are deployed, evaluated/improved, aligned, and integrated throughout the organization, and their effectiveness at driving organizational results.

MN Quality Award Assessment

 

The Minnesota Quality Award process includes the following steps:

 

Prepare

The process begins with the organization submitting a Letter of Intent.  Within six weeks, the organization then completes and submits two documents to the Council:

• a written five page Organizational Profile (which describes the organization’s context, including customer/market dynamics, workforce profile, competitive situation, regulatory environment, strategic advantages and challenges, among other factors), and
• a summary of their organizational results (including product/service, customer focused, financial/marketplace, workforce focused, process/operations, and leadership).

 

Initial Evaluation

The Profile and Results are reviewed by our Panel of Judges to determine what resources are required to complete the evaluation.  An organization considered advanced in its maturity and performance results will invited to submit a “full” application – either a 50-page written narrative application (responding to the Baldrige Criteria questions), or a Baldrige Express survey conducted with its workforce (either full staff or a sampling).  The narrative application offers the opportunity for the organization to thoroughly describe processes and corresponding results (usually by a small number of leaders and practitioners) and oftentimes facilitates deep internal dialogue about the strength of an organization’s operations.  Contrastingly, the Express survey is a quicker, sometimes easier way to get a breadth of opinion of the performance of your organization’s system.  For either method (narrative or Express), the Council has expert resources in our Consultant Referral Network (www.consultantreferralnetwork.org) to assist organization, as desired.

If an organization is earlier in its performance excellence journey, it will not be required to complete a narrative application of Baldrige Express survey (though submitting them is optional).  The team may, however, request some additional information to help prepare for site visit. 

Independent Review

Once complete, the narrative (or Baldrige Express survey results) is submitted to the Council and then independently reviewed by a team of eight to 12 trained, volunteer Evaluators (four to six for less mature organizations) to identify strengths and improvement opportunities in light of the best Baldrige Criteria and through the filter of your Organizational Profile.  Teams are built balancing many factors, including sector/industry knowledge, functional expertise, Baldrige experience, and leadership experience.

Consensus & Site Visit

The team then forms a consensus view of the organization’s strengths and improvement opportunities before conducting a site visit to verify perceived strengths and clarify possible improvement opportunities.  Site visits are two to four days, depending on the size, complexity, and maturity of the organization, and site visits also offer an opportunity for organizational learning.

Improvement Planning

The output of our process is a comprehensive feedback report, which includes a list of key themes (similar to an executive summary), description of strengths and improvement opportunities by Criteria Item, and scores.  Our final step is an Improvement Planning Session.  Scheduled about a month after site visit, this two/three-hour facilitated session is intended to 1) promote understanding of the feedback report, and 2) work with senior leaders to prioritize improvement opportunities that oftentimes serves as input to an organization’s planning process.

 

Alternative Assessment (not eligible for the MN Quality Award)

We also begin offer an alternative evaluation process -- one that is not eligible for our Award, but offers an alternative evaluation for organizations either just getting started with the Baldrige framework and/or for those already on the journey but interested in more consultative (prescriptive) feedback.  This process has four phases:

Phase 0.  This assessment also begins with completing a Letter of Intent, after which the main task in this phase is to scope the assessment, determine the assessment timeline, and select resources.  On the latter, this assessment will use sub-contracted consultants approved and managed by the Council (and selected by you, the organization).  Consultants may come from our Consultant Referral Network and will be highly skilled in the Baldrige framework.  The assessment may also use a complementary team of volunteer sector experts, facilitated by the consultant.  This option is intended for those organizations already using Baldrige but in need of a different level – perhaps even more prescriptive – of feedback.

Phase 1.  This phase consists of a half-day facilitated session that includes some education on Baldrige and working session to complete the Baldrige Organizational Profile.  The session is facilitated by a consultant and will likely include senior leaders and other key resources.  The output of this session will be used to set the context of the assessment, but the dialogue will be useful in building consensus and understanding across leadership.  After the half-day session, the organization is asked to compile their organization results, and senior leaders will complete an abbreviated Baldrige Express survey (see above).  Phase 1 will take about a month total.

Phase 2.  This phase is a one-day “site visit,” facilitated by the consultant (possibly two days if there is also an expert team involved).  The consultant/team will have prepared a list of interview questions, based on the context set by the Organizational Profile, the responses from the Baldrige Express survey, and the organizational results supplied.  Most of the discussions will be held with leadership, although there may be a few interviews/discussions with the “field” to consider potential differences in deployment.  The purpose of this phase is to gain clarity on the organization’s strengths and improvement opportunities, but also to educate the organization through the dialogue.

Phase 3: The final phase, occurring about two weeks after Phase 2, is a half-day facilitated sessions with senior leaders in which feedback is presented and discussed and priorities for improvement are identified.  This phase is most similar to the “Improvement Planning Session” in our Award process (above), and is intended to promote understanding and build momentum for improvement.  The final product of this assessment is a feedback report (which is an abbreviated version of the Award report above); Baldrige scores are provided in ranges to help leaders gauge progress and determine priorities.

The total process takes less than two months, so offers a quick, less intense way to evaluate an organization’s management system.  However, the process is less rigorous and does not address the more complicated parts of an organization’s management system (issues like alignment, integration, and thorough levels of deployment).

Which evaluation process is right for your organization?

Selecting the right approach depends on several factors, including:

• Your organization’s resources (time and financial)
• What speed/time requirements your organization desires
• What level of understanding and experience your organization has with systemic assessment and improvement
• The level of evaluation your organization desires
• Whether public recognition is important to your organization -- to celebrate strengths with your stakeholders and to motivate continuous improvement

We would be happy to visit with you about the benefits of either process.

 

If you would like to learn more about the Criteria, our assessment process, or the Award, please contact us directly.  We hope we can help you on your improvement journey.