A business excellence assessment is the most effective means to establish the health of your organisation. There are many tools available to help you to conduct an assessment. But which tool to use?
Assessments methods fall into four general approaches. The linked table below provides a general guide to the time taken to apply a particular approach and depth of feedback that may be expected for each self assessment approach.
(Benchmarking and Performance Excellence Self-assessment)
The BPES pack has been used by over 300 organisations from the public and private sector and from small organisations (5 employees) to large multinationals. BPES is a comprehensive self-assessment programme that will enable your organisation to assess its management systems and performance against world-class performance criteria, and benchmark your organisation’s performance against other participating organisations worldwide.
BPES offers options of assessment against the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (used in the States and many other countries such as New Zealand) or the EFQM Business Excellence Model (used throughout Europe and other countries such as the UAE). Both of these business excellence models are similar and reflect the successful management practices of high performing companies.
BPES has also been translated into Chinese and Arabic.
For further information on BPES click here.
For a comparison of Assessor and BPES click here.
For an order form click here.
Businesses are generally too busy to complete a full award style assessment and uncertain of the cost-benefits of this approach. The questionnaire approach while taking the shortest time offers unpredictable results and offers little if any insight to impart learning about business excellence necessary to ensure that benefits result.
Through businessexcellencetools.com we are able to offer two self assessment tools, Assessor and BPES. These self assessment tools compliment each other. The following table summarises the attributes of these tools.
| Attribute | Assessor | BPES |
|---|---|---|
| Approach |
Workshop
|
Workshop & Questionnaire
|
| Method | Card based | Paper based (electronic copies issued only) |
| Scope | Organisational wide but very effective for focused assessments or brainstorming sessions on individual criteria. |
Organisational wide and multi-site assessments
|
| Self-assessment? | An instruction booklet is provided with each Assessor card deck. No prior experience of business excellence is required. | A self-assessment pack is provided with full instructions. No prior experience of business excellence is required. |
| Facilitation available? | Facilitation by businessexcellencetools.com is available and can be particularly useful for intorducing the programme including providing training for internal quality management staff. | Facilitation by businessexcellencetools.com is available and can be particularly useful for introducing the programme and facilitating the consensus meeting. |
| Process steps |
|
|
| People involved | Senior Management Team or Project Teams | Senior Management Team and cross-section of staff from all levels |
| No. of people involved | 1 to 8 people | 1 to 20 (could be the whole organisation if desired) |
| Standard time to apply (the time can be less or more for both approaches if required) | One day assessment workshop.One day action planning workshop | Questionnaire takes up to 3 hours to complete per person + one day consensus meeting + one day action planning + 5 days for one person to administer the whole process. |
| Models supported | MBNQA | MBNQA, EFQM |
| Language options currently available | English | English, Chinese, Arabic |
| Benchmark performance data | No | Yes |
| Output | Strengths & Areas for Improvement summarised on mind maps and prioritised Opportunities for Improvement | Strengths & Areas for Improvement identified and Business Excellence Score report (and benchmark comparison) |
| Scoring methods | Yes | Yes |
| Action planning support | Yes | Yes |
| When to choose which tool? | If you can only obtain one day of senior management commitmentTo create awareness within your senior management team of business excellence
If you wish to run an improvement project focussed on only one criteria of business excellence |
If you can gain the commitment of your senior management team to a more comprehensive business excellence programme.If you are sure that those who complete the assessment will take the process seriously and put their time into it.
If your organisation is ready for a culture changing organisational-wide programme. |
To order Assessor click here or BPES click here.
As we are constantly developing new features for our tools, contact us today if you have a particular requirement that is not currently listed or you are still unsure of which tool to use.
For further information comparing self-assessment methods click here.
Assessor is a card based assessment tool developed by PYXIS.co.nz. It has been specifically designed to provide an action learning experience on the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence combined with an organisational self assessment in the fastest possible time. Particularly useful for the busy executive management team where an organisational assessment must be conducted in just one day, Assessor makes this possible.
We offer the following Assessor related products: Assessor Card Deck – One set of Assessor cards for the experienced Baldrige evaluator Facilitated Assessment using Assessor – for businesses that want a self assessment completed by an experienced Assessor facilitator Assessor Facilitator Training – to learn how to facilitate self assessments using our Assessor card tool. For further information on Assessor click here.
For a comparison of Assessor and BPES click here.
For an order form click here.
Whether it is for further success or simple survival, any organisation needs to constantly improve its performance.
But how? For many organisations, any method that achieves such constant improvement needs to be not only effective but also practical, easy to use, and affordable.
Our assessment tools will enable you to rapidly
Our assessment tools, Assessor and BPES, are aligned to the criteria of proven models that are known to deliver superior business results. These models are called Business Excellence Models and are based on the principles of Business Excellence.
Memberships
Qualifications
Areas of expertise
Experience overview:
Michael has worked for the NZ and US governments and in private enterprise, prior to setting up his own consultancy. PYXIS Consulting specialises in applying the Criteria for Performance Excellence to improve the performance of organisations.
Michael’s work with the Criteria has involved the assessment of organisations from two person partnerships to multi-site companies, and a wide range of businesses including government departments, local bodies, manufacturers, high technology companies, tourist operators, exporters, retailers and service based organisations.
Key Achievements:
Sample of recent work completed
Selected Publications
Two handbooks on Business Excellence published by NZ Business Excellence Foundation.
Authors: Doug Matheson, Michael Voss, Bill English and Sue Wright.
Mann, R.S. & Voss, M.E. (2000). An Innovative Process Improvement Approach that Integrates ISO 9000 with the Baldrige Framework. Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol 7, No.2, p128-146; won the Tait Quality Prize for Best Practical Quality Paper in New Zealand for 2000.
Positions
Qualifications
Areas of expertise
Experience overview:
Dr Robin Mann received one of the first PhD’s in Total Quality Management worldwide, prior to working as a Process Improvement Manager at Burton’s Biscuits in Edinburgh. Robin founded and managed the Food and Drinks Industry Benchmarking and Self-assessment Initiative in the UK involving over 500 organisations. In 1998 Robin moved to New Zealand and established the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research at Massey University.
Robin has assisted over 300 organisations to undertake self-assessments using a variety of business excellence self-assessment tools. Robin is a trained assessor of both the EFQM Excellence Model and the Baldrige Criteria. Robin has written 20 refereed journal papers for leading journals, written over 100 non-refereed papers and reports, written 6 short books, given 100’s of professional presentations and is frequently a keynote presenter (invited to present in 11 countries during 2006). For a list of publications for download click here.
Sample of recent work completed
Founded the New Zealand Benchmarking Club. The Club was founded in May 2000 and ran for four years with 18 member organisations. The Club provided a number of services that were designed to accelerate the progress of member organisations to world-class performance (including benchmarking training, benchmarking studies, workshops, conferences and research services). It achieved great success as member organisations improved their Baldrige score by an average of 50 points per year (assessed by BPES).
Facilitated four regional benchmarking programmes in New Zealand through working with Gosling Chapman ( Auckland ) and the Business Development Centre (Hamilton) involving 40 SME’s in 2005, 2006 and 2007. All organisations used BPES.
Robin is the lead consultant of a business excellence programme in Ras Al Khaimah (United Arab Emirates) for the government from 2005 onwards. This project involves assisting 17 government departments towards business excellence (through helping them to apply the EFQM excellence model and identify best practices through benchmarking).
Reviewed and updated the Australian Business Excellence Framework and advised on its deployment on behalf of the custodians of the model (SAI Global) in 2004/5. This project had the involvement of 16 countries and was endorsed by the Global Excellence Model Council. It was a unique project in that it is not only looked at the design of the framework but also how best to deploy it on a national basis. The project was of major international significance – most countries participating used the findings as an input to their national business excellence strategy.
Provided business excellence and benchmarking programme advice to a number of countries including Australia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Taiwan.
