For 16 years, the Baldrige Criteria have been used by thousands of U.S. organizations to stay abreast of ever-increasing competition and to improve performance. For today’s business environment, the Criteria help organizations respond to current challenges: openness and transparency in governance and ethics; the need to create value for customers and the business; and the challenges of rapid innovation and capitalizing on your knowledge assets. Whether your business is small or large, is involved in service or manufacturing, or has one office or multiple sites across the globe, the Criteria provide a valuable framework that can help you plan in an uncertain environment. Use the Criteria to assess performance on a wide range of key business indicators: customer, product and service, financial, human resource, and operational. The Criteria can help you align resources and apprOAches, such as ISO 9000, Lean EntERPrise, Balanced Scorecard, and Six Sigma; improve communication, productivity, and effectiveness; and achIEve strategic gOAls.

How to begin that first Baldrige assessment? Take a few minutes and scan the questions in the Organizational Profile on pages 10–12. A discussion of the answers to these questions might be your first Baldrige assessment. For additional guidance, refer to our free booklet Getting Started with the Baldrige National Quality Program Criteria for Performance Excellence: A Guide to Self-Assessment and Action.

If you are ready to take the full Baldrige challenge, you can perform a self-assessment as an internal improvement effort, or you can use your self-assessment as the basis for an Award application. Assessment against all seven Categories of the Criteria (see pages 13–29) allows you to identify strengths and to address opportunitIEs for improving your processes and results.