Pilot Product Will Offer the Baldrige Site Visit Experience

For years, the Baldrige Program has heard from its award applicants that the most valuable and robust feedback comes when the organization is site visited by a team of Baldrige examiners. Such site visits allow the examiners to verify and clarify their understanding of the applicant, and the applicant to fully tell its story beyond what can be written in a 50-page application.

Format for the Pilot

In this pilot year, the Baldrige Program will work with one or more organizations not chosen for a traditional site visit through the award process to participate in the Baldrige Site Visit Experience. (Note: On August 17, 2016, the Baldrige Panel of Judges will select which Baldrige Award applicants will receive site visits based on detailed scoring data from Consensus Review. Applicants who are not selected will be considered for participation in the Baldrige Site Visit Experience pilot because they are no longer in the running for the Baldrige Award.)

For the organization(s) that participate in the Baldrige Site Visit Experience pilot, the examiners will visit the organization's site(s) to review documents, conduct interviews, listen to focus groups, and dialogue with various workforce members to identify what they believe are the organization's strengths and opportunities for improvement. The Baldrige examiners will conduct a closing meeting to present their high-level findings and scoring ranges. At the end of the site visit, the organization will also receive the site visit item worksheets completed by the examiner team. In other words, instead of a fully edited feedback report, the organization will receive a report consisting of examiners' consensus scorebook comments, evidence found on-site, the impact of those findings, and modified strengths and opportunities based on the evidence found on-site.

The outcome of this evaluation will have no bearing on the organization's current or future award evaluations other than what the organization learns from the experience and uses to improve its performance, improve its award application, and prepare for any future Baldrige Award site visits.