Avoid the most common pitfalls

Tips for a successful Assessment

8. Use a single, integrated assessment team

There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of category owners and category teams: but the way that this is often implemented – as separate, largely independent teams – can cause a host of problems.

Contrary to common wisdom, category teams are not essential: in fact a single team, properly organized, will usually do a better job, in less time, using fewer resources. So creating separate category teams is not necessary. But creating category teams that will work largely independently is just asking for trouble. Here's what's wrong with this approach.

1. It tends to consume resources

The idea of establishing six or seven teams may pre-empt a very important early decision: how many people to involve as assessors. Having a large number of people involved is usually unnecessary and creates knock-on problems of coordination, communication, and cost: the assessment process can quickly morph into an expensive, unwieldy and uncontrollable monster that takes on a life of its own. Remember, this is stealing resources from the 'real' improvement work that is to follow the assessment!

2. It impedes a proper understanding of the complete management system

The Baldrige categories are not independent 'stovepipes', but represent interconnected parts of a system. And the aim of an assessment is to understand the whole system, not just individual components. People need to understand how all the components work together (or don't) so that they can correctly identify the priorities for improvement. Setting up separate category teams can create barriers (between the teams) that impede this shared understanding.

Assessors working in separate teams are also less likely to spot 'cross-cutting' issues. These are issues not specific to one category but to do with linkages between categories, or themes that are evident throughout. These cross-cutting issues are often among the most important findings.

3. It tends to lead to ineffective interviewing

With category teams, it is also natural to interview by category, i.e. to focus mainly on one category in each interview. This means that many people in key positions will be subjected to several interviews (it could be as many as seven). Furthermore, the interviewees will feel (rightly) that they have been asked for the much of the same information several times, albeit in slightly different ways. The interviewer who comes along last is going to encounter some very frustrated interviewees!

When people are interviewed, they don't (and cannot) give answers that fall neatly within a single category: their answers follow the real-life linkages of how the work gets done, and these lead into other categories. If the interviewer is only listening for category-specific information, then a lot of important information is lost.

4. It impedes the identification of improvement priorities

Finally, the category team approach can lead to severe problems at the end of the assessment, when it is time to identify the 'vital few' priorities for improvement . Typically, each team is focused mostly on its own category, knows much less about the others, and feels strongly that something from 'their' category is the top priority for improvement. Instead of a shared understanding of the current state (which naturally leads to a strong consensus) there may be opposing 'camps' with very different, strongly-held views about the priorities.

The typical outcomes are: too many priorities; poorly-chosen priorities; or gridlock and inability to reach agreement at all. Perhaps you could try breaking the gridlock by using a mechanical selection process based on the scores? No, that's not a good idea either! (See a later tip on this.)

A better way

An approach that will work much better in most situations is to employ a single team of manageable size, and to have the whole team involved in gathering information on all categories. Each interview is designed to cover all of the ground required, and the key findings from each interview are summarized afterwards and shared with the whole team.

It can be helpful to have some category-related responsibilities within the team. For example, some individuals (or sub-groups) may be asked to become the 'experts' on a specific category; to monitor whether the interviews are obtaining sufficient information on this category; and to draft the preliminary findings for this category (drawing on the relevant information gathered in all of the interviews).

The whole team can then review and revise these draft findings, to arrive at a consensus. When developed in this way the findings tend to be more accurate and insightful , 'cross cutting' issues are easily identified, and every single team member understands and can support all of the findings.

Finally, a single, cohesive team like this will easily arrive at a consensus regarding the vital few priorities for improvement – and so will their senior leaders after hearing the findings.

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