easyInsight: Take a First Step toward a Baldrige Self-Assessment Action Planning

Now that you have completed easyInsight,

1. Prepare answers to the questions in the Organizational Profile (for business/nonprofit organizations, education organizations, or health care organizations), and communicate them to all employees.
2. If you identify topics for which conflicting, little, or no information is available, or topics on which you find a lack of consensus or incomplete communication or implementation, you may want to address them through action planning:

• Prioritize those items from the Organizational Profile for which you believe there is conflicting, little, or no information available, or on which it would be difficult to reach consensus at this time.
• Make an Action Plan table similar to the one shown below. List your top priorities in the first column.
• Develop action steps to address the priorities you identified. Determine who is responsible for each step, when it will start and end, how it will be accomplished, and how progress will be measured.
• Then implement the action plan.

If you had no missing or conflicting information, or if you have addressed these issues through action planning, you may be ready for further self-assessment steps.

The Baldrige Excellence Framework provide a complete system for self-assessment and prioritizing needed changes or improvement in your organization.

Sample Action Plan to Close One Gap

• Missing information or lack of consensus in information: What are the key customer requirements for our three key customer segments?
• Gap: Although we have a good sense of what our customers want, we do not know specific key requirements for each segment.
• Measures: Identify 1–3 key customer requirements for each of 3 key customer segments within 5 months. All associates will receive information about requirements by October 1.