Baldrige Performance Excellence: 2013 Improvement Survey Results Available
By Baldridge Customer Service
Posted: Feb 24, 2014
In fall 2013, the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award sponsored a survey of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program’s customers and stakeholders. The purpose of the survey was to inform fundraising and to identify areas for improvement in products and services. The survey also asked for input on products and services that respondents would like the program to offer.
The survey was sent to the broad Baldrige community (about 10,000 individuals), and 1,050 individuals responded. Survey questions and brief summaries of the answers are below. For a more comprehensive analysis, see the Baldrige Foundation 2013 Survey Response Summary (PDF).
Products and Services
-If the Baldrige Program could offer you one product or service that it does not currently offer, what would that product or service be? The top suggestions were training of various types and benchmarking/best practices databases, followed by consulting/coaching/mentoring services.
-Please indicate your use of any of the following self-assessment tools (Are We Making Progress?, Are We Making Progress as Leaders?, easyInsight, other: e.g., Baldrige Express). Please comment on the usefulness of the tools. Most respondents identified the tools as useful, mainly for introducing and raising awareness of the Baldrige Criteria.
-Have you used the services of a Baldrige-based regional/state/local program? If yes, in what capacity? More than half of the respondents said that they had used the services of a Baldrige-based program, with some commenting on their experience.
The Baldrige Criteria
-Have you ever used the Criteria for Performance Excellence? If not, please comment on why. Nearly 90% of the respondents had used the Baldrige Criteria. For the minority who had not, the two most common reasons were lack of familiarity with the Criteria and the organization’s lack of readiness or willingness to use them. The top use of the Criteria was as an internal aid or as the basis of an internal assessment.
-How likely is it that you would recommend the Criteria for Performance Excellence to a professional colleague or key customer, partner, or supplier? Of the respondents, more than 90% said that they were very likely or likely to recommend the Criteria. Fewer than 3% were unlikely or very unlikely to recommend them.
-What are the major factors keeping you from being more likely to recommend the Criteria? Taken together, the most commonly mentioned factors were perceived complexity of the Criteria or of the language in the Criteria.
-Because of a loss of federal funding, the Baldrige Program must now charge a fee for the Criteria for Performance Excellence. Has this fee been a barrier to your organization’s use of the Criteria? Nearly 38% of the respondents said that the fee was a barrier.
-Some organizations have told us that the Baldrige Criteria are too complex. If you believe this is so, how would you simplify the Baldrige Criteria? The most frequent response was that the Criteria were not too complex, with the respondents advising against simplifying them. The next most frequent suggestion was to increase the accessibility of the Criteria by offering tiered versions scaled to different levels of users.
The Examiner Viewpoint
-If you attended Examiner Training in 2012 and/or 2013, how satisfied were you with your experience? More than 84% of the respondents said that they were very satisfied or satisfied; just over 3% were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
-What are the major factors keeping you from giving your experience in Examiner Training a higher rating? Among the factors mentioned, none accounted for more than 10% of the total. The most frequently mentioned factors related to classmates and facilitators.
-As an examiner, if you participated in a national Baldrige Award evaluation in 2012 and/or 2013, how satisfied were you with your experience? About three quarters of the respondents were satisfied or very satisfied, and about 6% were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
-What are the major factors keeping you from giving a higher rating to your experience as an examiner in a national Baldrige evaluation? The factor mentioned most often was particular to the 2013 Baldrige Award process: large evaluation teams and the fact that new examiners typically did not participate fully in Consensus Review. The second most common group of issues involved Site Visit Review.
The Baldrige Program thanks all members of the community who took the time to give the Foundation and program the gift of their feedback. The information will be used to improve current products and services, as well as to plan for products and services to offer in the future.
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