Preparing an Effective Application for Recognition 

Challenge 

Do you want to gain an outside perspective of current business processes and performance; and receive valuable feedback that can be used to accelerate improvement? 

Internal business performance assessments can be very valuable to your organization’s improvement effort.  However, conducting an internal assessment is like looking in a mirror.  What you see often looks better than it really is - we tend to rationalize away the wrinkles and flaws.  Internal assessments also have the disadvantage of getting pushed to the back burner when more urgent issues come up, impeding progress along the continuous improvement path.  There is an alternative that provides an objective assessment that is given priority and valuable feedback – at an affordable price.  

Solution 

DeBaylo Associates can help your organization get objective, external feedback about your processes and performance by applying for Performance Excellence recognition through State, National (Baldrige) or organization-level (if available) award programs.  The award process examination, performed by a team of experts, provides fresh ideas that can help accelerate improvement initiatives.  

Approach 

First, we will help your organization decide if applying for an award is the right approach and will help drive improvement.  If the decision is yes, our consultants will work with your organization to set a positive, common goal that will motivate and energize the team – i.e., applying for recognition.  Since there are deadlines to meet, preparing an application becomes one of those urgent priorities.   

Most award processes provide detailed instructions on how to prepare an application.  The difficulty is knowing what the Criteria is asking for and communicating a response in a manner that the examiners will understand.  Our consultants are experts in interpreting the Criteria, conducting assessments, and preparing applications.  They are currently or have been senior Baldrige examiners, judges for State and company award programs, and have trained thousands of examiners. Using our vast experience, we will train and coach your writing team in preparing an effective award application.  

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Results 

With our help, your organization will produce a comprehensive, responsive, accurate and timely application – one that reflects well on your key processes and business strengths.  While the application is being written as part of an award program, the ultimate goal is not winning an award, but in receiving helpful feedback from the external examination team. The better the application the more useful the feedback report will be.   

In addition to a scoring summary, the feedback report will contain actionable commentary, specific to your organization, for use in your strategic planning process. Using our Management Action Planning (MAP) process, our consultants can help you translate the feedback into strategically aligned improvement plans. The better the plan, the more improvement you will ultimately achieve.

DeBaylo Associates’ efforts have contributed significantly in helping to focus on opportunities to improve our processes. Their thorough understanding of the Baldrige approach and criteria along with vast experience with other  companies, allow them to provide valuable services.”                                                              Gene O’Neill - Allstate Insurance Company