MassExcellence—Professional Leadership Development Through the Examiner Experience
Our Baldrige-based Examiner Experience program for the Massachusetts Performance Excellence Award is our signature program. This program provides what professionals want, which is to gain a comprehensive understanding how the Baldrige Criteria is applied to companies in the categories of Leadership, Strategic Planning, Customer and Market Focus, Information and Knowledge Management, Workforce Focus, Process Management, and Results. The two-day workshop is the beginning of your Experience, qualifying you to be selected from our pool of trained state examiners to do a full Baldrige-based assessment of an applicant to our Award Program.
The Examiner Experience is often compared to an intense, accelerated MBA program – full participation in this program is the ultimate in professional leadership development. Once completed, you’ll never look at companies the same way ever again. It’s enlightening!
All our faculty and team coaches guiding you in this program are highly experienced past or present National Baldrige Senior Examiners or Judges. Our state program is amongst the best, as evidenced by individuals joining our program outside of Massachusetts, from Texas, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. For those completing the entire award cycle process, we will place your name on our website as a certified state examiner.
THE TWO DAY WORKSHOP
Our two-day workshop is where we will use the actual Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence to build your systems thinking and skills in assessing a mock organization’s application developed for training National Baldrige Examiners. This in–depth view of the criteria will incorporate practical exercises in team settings that closely mimic the work for the actual award cycle process. Our only required pre-work assignment is for attendees to become intimately familiar with the case study application as this will be the focal point for your work throughout the two days. This workshop is designed for senior leaders, department managers, practitioners, business and non-business professionals that want to learn more about what’s important to their organizations. In addition to this being described as an accelerated mini-MBA, we have been told that in terms of certifications, the RABQSA Management Consultant certification is very similar.
Click on this Events Page link to check out the next training dates.
The Workshop in Brief
In the course of two days, we will use the newest Baldrige application case study to:
- Summarize the key requirements of the seven Baldrige Categories and Items
- Score responses using Approach, Deployment, and Results dimensions
- Focus on understanding and reducing scoring variability
- Pool our knowledge in team-building exercises, learning from each other in the process
- Learn how to evaluate a organization's Award application with due regard for the organization's various business factors
- Understand and apply the consensus scoring process
- Add value with Feedback Reports
QUESTIONS IMPORTANT TO YOU
- What’s the benefit for my becoming a state award examiner?
- You take away your new organizational leadership system-level skills and understanding to develop to build stronger systems and guide operational excellence wherever you choose to do it. Networking with your examiner team with their broad band of professions, education, and experiences add to this top-notch shared learning experience. Depending on your reasons to attend, this program adds professional value to you in your present company, for your career in general, and for those of you in transition. Our examiners report that potential employers seeing full participation in the Examiner Experience on your resume often piques their interest to have a conversation with you. Several have reported it was this Experience that convinced the employer to hire them.
- Do I have to participate in the award cycle
- No, you are welcome to attend a workshop without committing to participate in the examiner award cycle. We understand the difficulty for some to take 7-9 days time away from the office between December and April to participate in the examiner cycle. If you decide to participate in the examiner cycle, we do need full commitment and follow-through.
Click on this Award Program Page link to check the dates of our award cycle activities. - Am I guaranteed to be selected for an examiner team
- Our goal is to place everyone who takes our training and has the appropriate education, experience and true commitment to following through to the finish. It has been a rarity, but it is not always possible to place everyone. In addition, we reserve the right not to place an individual on a team or to remove someone once they’ve been assigned. Maintaining the integrity of the process is an absolute must for us. We are all professionals and if there are options available, we will talk to you about them.
- If I take the training and participate as an examiner, are there any additional costs?
- No, the only cost is for the two-day workshop. No charge for our one-day refresher in December. No charge for our consensus meetings in February, or for potential overnight accommodations during the consensus and site visit.
- How much time is required of an award cycle examiner?
- Other than the 16 hours for the two-day workshop, the time spent in the refresher workshop, meetings, individual review, preparation, meetings, and the on-site visit will take about 150 hours in between December and April. Time away from the office is between 7 and 9 days.
Before you make this commitment, this is important for you to know – Many do this for their own benefit, meaning they have no company support. If this is your situation, it may be frowned on by your employer to work on your assignments during company time. In this case, there may be instances requiring flexibility in your personal life to ensure completion of the work for the process. - What are the necessary qualifications for me to become an examiner?
- Top leaders, managers, business and non-business professionals from diverse functional areas and sectors are encouraged to participate. You do not have to be in the quality sciences. Our examiners often include CEO’s, COO’s, MD’s, RN’s, CPA’s, PhD’s, EdD’s, PharmD’s, and so on. The desire to participate depends on personal or organizational goals. What are yours?
- Is this a certification?
- Yes, but to be a certified examiner and listed on our website as an examiner, you need to successfully complete all the training, individual review, consensus meetings and planning, a company site visit, and inputs to the feedback report.
THE EXAMINER EXPERIENCE ACTIVITIES
- Take the first step. Attend the next Examiner Experience Workshop.
- If you would like to participate in the full examiner cycle, click this Examiner Application link, complete, and e-mail the application to us with your resume to info@massexcellence.com. We begin in December and end in April. Adequate time is given between assignments to complete the work and minimize the impact to your time. Realistically, the entire process takes approximately 150 hours of time over this five month period which includes time for all off –site activities. Comparatively, a National Baldrige Examiner participating in the same activities may require about 300 hours within a six month period.
- If participating in the examiner cycle, attendance at a one-day refresher in December is required to sharpen the skills you received in training. That day we will address any potential conflicts of interest and assign you an applicant and your team. Your team leader will provide instructions on proceeding.
- Your first assignment, your independent review, will take approximately 40 hours.
- After completing your review, there will be some planning activities to prepare for your facilitated three-day team consensus meetings. During consensus, your team will come to a single outcome originating from the examiner reviews. The team will then create issues to review on your site visit. Although three days seems a lot, you have actually saved a day or two with this facilitation.
- Prep for your site visit. After several conference calls, all teams will visit their applicant’s site for about three to five days. This is where your major learnings happen. As a category lead, you and each team member will have items to clarify and verify. This will involve interviews and reviewing specialized documents. You may even find it necessary to attend an internal meeting or two. Once completed, all your comments are refined, sent to the team lead, who places them in a single feedback report for your applicant.
End of process. Congratulations! You’ve made it and you are now one of our most recent certified state examiners.
TEAM LEADERS
Your Team Leader is pivotal in guiding your team through the process and completing the feedback report. Our team leaders all have leadership and teaming skills, and prior State or National Baldrige Examiner experience. We occasionally make exceptions with individuals demonstrating relevant and related skills. If you possess these attributes, and enjoy managing volunteers and activities and would like to keep your skills sharp, and able to facilitate a team to full closure, this is something we’d be glad to talk to you about. Our team leads are assisted at certain points in the process by our National Baldrige-experienced faculty and coaches.
Once the team leader completes the feedback report with your inputs, it is sent to our Panel of Judges for their decision on award level to be given. Team Leads participate in the deliberations by the judges only in the role to answer any questions relevant to the feedback report.
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State Certified Baldrige Examiner
Teams, Faculty and Coaches |
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All Examiners have taken part in an actual Baldrige-based assessment,
by completing an independent review, participation in consensus meetings |
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Kay Kendall Past Judge/Present
Alumni–National Baldrige Examiner |
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Dick Eppig Past Senior/Present
Alumni–National Baldrige Examiner |
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Steve Hodlin Past
Senior/Alumni–National |
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Sharon Muret–Wagstaff,
PhD Past National Baldrige
Senior/Present |
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2009-10 Senior Examiners |
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Steve Cano Chief Pharmacy Officer |
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Christopher Hutchins Manager, Continuous
Improvement Hasbro Global Operations |
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Cynthia Reilly Director of Quality |
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2009-10 Board of Examiners |
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Derick Aumann Director, Environment
of Care and HR Action Ambulance
Service, Inc. |
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Kirk Brigham Team Lead, Clinical
Services & Communications Action Ambulance
Service, Inc. |
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Mary Ellen Crittenden Vice President, Quality |
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Richard Griffith President |
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Scott Halstead Training and Development Specialist |
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William Kalarness Principal Quality Engineer
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Jane McCarthy |
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Christopher Palmer Business Development
Manager |
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Joe Simone Sr. Team Leader,
Operations |
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