Baldrige Framework Revision: Some Focus Areas Evolve, Some Emphasized

The Baldrige Program has been working on the next two-year revision of the Baldrige Excellence Framework® (including the Criteria for Performance Excellence®) to ensure that it encompasses “proven leadership and management practices for high performance.” An additional goal is to simplify as much as possible to make it user-friendly, without losing the robustness of the Criteria as a management guide. The frameworks for business/nonprofit, health care, and education will be available early next year.

Baldrige staff members have conducted interviews with experts in their fields to gather input. For example, Baldrige staff members met with Frank Voehl, administrator of the U.S. technical advisory group for Innovation ISO 56000, and Rick Fernandez, vice chair of the U.S. technical advisory group for Innovation Management, to discuss how innovation is handled in the Criteria. They also met with Don Berwick, president emeritus and senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, for a discussion focused on population health and the results asked for in the Health Care Criteria. These interviews are in addition to all of the feedback that was sent to iday [at] nist.gov (iday[at]nist[dot]gov) (thank you to all!) and discussed during six webinars in the spring.

Themes Introduced Over the Last Ten Years

As we focus on the Criteria revisions for 2023–2024, consider the following key themes of the Criteria revisions over the last decade.

2021–2022
Changes focused on raising or strengthening organizations’ awareness of the need for organizational resilience; the benefits of DEI; and the ongoing digitization of nearly all aspects of organizational operations and management. Other changes clarified the role of innovation in organizational competitiveness and success, and expanded the framework’s focus on societal responsibility.

2019–2020
Changes focused on raising organizations’ awareness of business ecosystems, organizational culture, supply networks, and cybersecurity.

2017–2018
Changes focused on strengthening cybersecurity and enterprise risk management (ERM).

2015–2016
Three key themes evolved: (1) change management, (2) big data, and (3) climate change.

2013-2014
The focus was on three key considerations: (1) designing and implementing competitive work systems, (2) cultivating and managing innovation, and (3) mastering the evolving opportunities and challenges presented by social media.

Share Your Key Themes Suggestions

What would you like to see as the key themes for the next Baldrige Excellence Framework® and Criteria revision?

The 2023-2024 Baldrige Excellence Framework® with its Criteria are expected to be published in early 2023. There will be three versions: Business/Nonprofit, Health Care, and Education. In addition, the shorter version of the framework, Baldrige Excellence Builder®, will be updated and published in 2023.
 

Baldrige Excellence Framework®

The Baldrige Excellence Framework has empowered organizations to accomplish their missions, improve results, and become more competitive. It includes the Criteria for Performance Excellence, core values and concepts, and guidelines for evaluating your processes and results.

2023–2024 Frameworks: Available January 2023