What Is a Baldrige Self-Assessment?
A Baldrige self-assessment helps organizations assess whether they are developing and deploying a sound, balanced and systematic approach for running their organization. Whether your organization is large or small, and no matter your industry or sector, you can use the Baldrige Excellence Framework® and Criteria to conduct a self-assessment of your organization. It provides a way to evaluate how well your organization is meeting its goals and objectives. Organizations use it to evaluate their processes and their impact on results. Learn about the Impact of Baldrige.
You Can Customize it – Self-assessments are flexible and can be customized to meet your improvement objectives.
Why Should Organizations Self-Assess?
Organizations self-assess to reveal strengths to build and opportunities to improve and implement action plans. Many reasons can underlie the need for a Baldrige self-assessment
- Customers, competitors, or budget are driving the need to change
- Environment is changing
- Organization is among the best, and you want to keep it that way
Benefits of Self-Assessing
- Identify successes and opportunities for improvement
- Jump-start a change initiative
- Energize improvement initiatives
- Energize the workforce
- Focus your organization on common goals
- Assess performance against the competition
- Align resources with strategic objectives
Resources
Most organizations (and communities) seeking performance excellence begin at the state/regional level. Southwest Alliance for Excellence (SWAE) is a volunteer-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization of performance excellence experts comprised of Baldrige examiners, Baldrige coaches, and Baldrige judges. SWAE administers the Baldrige Framework in fulfilling its mission to empower organizations to achieve performance excellence for improved results and societal contributions in AZ, NV, and UT. We offer training, coaching, consulting, webinars, and short courses.
Several online guides and assessment tools can be found on the NIST/Baldrige website:
Purchase Baldrige Excellence Framework Business/Nonprofit, Education, Health Care
Self-Analysis Worksheet Word
Baldrige Excellence Builder
Baldrige Key Terms
Baldrige Improvement Tools