Many organizations find it challenging to

develop and deploy a truly integrated

strategic plan — particularly one that ties
to performance management efforts.
Here’s a case study that shows how one
organization—a federal agency —used the
Baldrige criteria to assess its strengths and
identify opportunities for improvement.

Using the Baldrige

Criteria to Assess
Strategic Planning:
A Case Study
Mary-jo Hall and his case study describes a
Jacqueline Lawson T project at the Pension Benefit
Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) to
assess strategic planning using the
Baldrige criteria. Strategic planning
was formalized at PBGC in 1998;
however, as of 2002 a process was
in place, but no formal written
description of the approach
existed. In an earlier effort, an
independent contractor had
conducted a study of PBGC, and
the contractor’s report expressed
concern that work force planning
was not integrated with the
development of strategy. The
contractor recommended that
PBGC assess the overall strategy
development and deployment
process in light of all aspects of
performance management.
Members of the assessment team
included six internal consulting
staff members plus a manager from
a major organizational unit who
provided an operational perspective.

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An external consultant with experience as a senior
Baldrige examiner designed and facilitated the
assessment process.
Assessment Scope
The primary objective was assessing the PBGC
strategic planning process based on a macro-view of
its outcomes. Secondarily, the PBGC team learned
about the 2002 Baldrige Performance Excellence
Criteria. The senior executive team used the results of
this macro-view to modify and guide the subsequent
PBGC strategic planning cycle.
Process
The work sessions were designed for team learning,
using a variant of the modality referred to as action
learning. In this approach, intentional learning is
combined with organizational problem solving or issue
analyses. Action learning emphasizes team learning as
much as the solution or end product that results from
team activities.
During the assessment, the team learned the
Baldrige criteria by “using them” rather than by
listening to lectures or reading about the criteria.
Tools used as part of the action learning process
included preparing “learning logs” and using outside
reading to stimulate fresh ideas. Team members
also benchmarked actual Baldrige and Presidential
Quality Award applications and reviewed Baldrige
publications, such as the 2002 Baldrige Performance
Excellence Criteria. A storyboard of the assessment
process and findings was also developed.
Work/Content Tasks
The assessment started with an overview of
the proposed process, expectations, deliverable
products, and some teaming strategies. These
included using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI), developing operating agreements, defining
roles and responsibilities, and developing a schedule
for the 15-week process.
The first content task involved developing a critical
path for alignment, a necessary step toward integration
of processes that helps produce excellent organization-
wide results. In the 2002 criteria, “alignment” refers to
consistency of plans, processes, information, resource
decisions, actions, results, analysis, and individual
learning to support key organization-wide goals.
Effective alignment requires use of complementary
measures and information for planning, tracking,
analysis, and improvement at three levels:
organizational, key process, and work unit.
To enhance
organizational-
level alignment Malcolm Baldrige
and integration
there are several
National
elements to
Quality
consider when Award
determining the
critical path.
This includes
knowing the
strategic direction or focus, understanding the
customers and their requirements, having internal
processes to support customer requirements, and
using measurements to monitor progress toward the
desired state. These elements are anchored in a clear
understanding of organizational challenges, strategic
goals, performance targets, and actual results.
The first part of the critical path exercise is
identifying key customer segments and prioritizing
these customers. “Customer-driven excellence” is a
core value of the Baldrige criteria. The third Baldrige
category, “customer and market knowledge,” contains
three items that address building relationships,
determining requirements, measuring satisfaction,
and retention strategies.
After determining the key customer segments, the
second phase in determining the critical path is listing
requirements. This is followed by listing the internal
value-creation processes for the requirements and ends
with the satisfaction measures.
After completing the critical path, the team:
• Completed the PBGC organizational profile. The
organizational profile was a high-level description
of the business environment; the key relationships
with customers, suppliers, and other partners;
the competitive environment, including the key
strategic challenges; and the performance
improvement system.
• Assessed PBGC against the seven Baldrige categories:
leadership, strategic planning, customer and market
focus, information and analysis, human resource
focus, process management, and business results. The
assessment used the item-level criteria as its basis.
• Determined strengths and opportunities for
improvement for each of the categories/items.
Summer 2003 THE JOURNAL FOR QUALITY & PARTICIPATION 37
 Findings/Recommendations While we now have many output measures, we need
The findings included overall organizational to incorporate both leading and lagging outcome
strengths and opportunities for improvement (not measures. These measures need to be balanced in
at the category level). The strengths are considered terms of financial, customer satisfaction, internal
leverage points and need continual evaluation for operations, and learning and growth of employees.
change and improvement. The opportunities for “A systematic approach to process management
improvement provide a guide for further aligning (assessment using outcome metrics) could complement
organizational systems, thereby increasing the customer-focused climate. This requires formal
integration and performance results. cycles of improvement (a standard continuous
The following strengths of PBGC were reported: improvement model) that are systematic throughout
1. People — including collaborative leadership styles, the corporation.
a team approach to work, and superb employees “There is a need to develop and implement a
who always get the job accomplished. human capital plan aligned with the strategic plan.
2. Processes — including many listening and learning It encompasses work force planning, succession
posts, extensive training, a quality assurance management, training and development,
program, and an operational monthly reporting performance management, labor-management
process (the Executive Information Report). relationships, and employee satisfaction.
3. Products—providing assurance for customers through “While we are data rich, we lack an integration
the continual and consistent collection of data and tool or model that fosters the collection, analyses,
information to improve products and services. sharing, and decision-making capability for our
4. Focus — including a clear mandate from Congress, data. This type of IT analytic tool forces the use of
as well as a customer-first way of thinking about quantitative data to assist in decision making and
the organization. contributes significantly to getting desired results.
5. Culture—including a healthy internal competitiveness “To improve collaboration and decision making, an
for success, an inherent flexibility that contributes understanding and active use of conflict management
to adjusting to changing customer requirements, techniques is required. Not having a corporate
and being proactive regarding organizational systematic approach that intentionally recognizes and
improvements. resolves conflicts delays progress toward our vision.”
The opportunities for improvement were determined The assessment as well as the opportunities for
in the context of criteria areas that did not score as improvement story indicated that PBGC managers
well. There was extensive would need to implement
discussion on what to multiple management
change in order to …self-discovery encouraged more practices (including
improve performance. ownership and commitment to process management and
Rather than prioritizing improvement, systems
and selecting two from change. …the team concluded that the thinking, strategy
a list, the team chose a process was an extremely effective development, value-stream
more systematic view and mapping, continuous
and efficient way to conduct the
connected the ideas via a process improvement,
story format. This story assessment. …the assessment project conflict management,
of enhancing performance was not an additional duty, but the use of quantitative
results by addressing data and planning and
the opportunities for
instead, demonstrated a better way to budget integration, and
improvement at PBGC was continually improve their daily work. performance management)
summarized as follows: to enhance performance.
“In order to provide With training and
assurance to our customers, we need to focus application in these areas, PBGC can move closer
strategic outcomes to enhance alignment with toward becoming a model high-performing
budget and incorporate human capital components. organization.

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Next Steps
Because the team assessed the product of their
own work within the organization, they were able
to produce some suggested improvement actions
immediately. One immediate action was publishing
a standard strategic development and deployment
process that integrated the budget cycle, calendar
year, and human capital initiatives. Another involved
developing and publishing a standard process for
continuous improvement. The team also changed
the monthly reports format to use charts and graphs
similar to those described in Category 7 of the 2002
Baldrige Performance Excellence Criteria.
Summary
One of the major responsibilities of the team was
preparing the leadership for its annual leadership
conference. This included briefing the leaders on the
assessment process and providing all of the assessment
products (the organizational profile, critical path
matrices, and findings/recommendations). All of these
products contributed to guiding the thinking around
future strategies.
An outside contractor could have completed the
entire assessment and given similar results; however,
self-discovery encouraged more ownership and
commitment to change. Based on their learning and
engagement in the project, the team concluded that
the process was an extremely effective and efficient
way to conduct the assessment. They also agreed
that the assessment project was not an additional
duty, but instead, demonstrated a better way to
continually improve their daily work.
Notes
• PBGC is a federal corporation created under the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
It currently guarantees payment of basic pension
benefits earned by nearly 44 million American
workers and retirees in more than 32,000 private-
sector defined benefit pension plans. It receives no
funds from general tax revenues. Operations are
financed largely by investment return and insurance
premiums paid by companies that sponsor
pension plans.
• The Baldrige criteria are the international standards
for assessing results-oriented organizations from a
systems perspective. Members of the PBGC team
wanted to learn this approach in order to determine
its applicability and effectiveness for corporate-
wide assessment of PBGC. For information on
the Baldrige National Quality Award see
http://www.quality.nist.gov or call 301-975-2036.
• Action learning has been extremely successful in
organizations such as General Electric and Shell
Oil Company.
• The opinions expressed in this article are those of
the authors and not necessarily of the organization.
Mary-jo Hall is a professor at Defense Acquisition
University, where she addresses the human side of
program management, individual development, teaming,
leadership, and organizational performance/results. She
also directs work force development and guides the
human capital strategies. Hall has served as an examiner,
senior examiner, and alumni examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award program. She can be reached at 703-805-4943.
Jacqueline Lawson is a senior management and program
analyst at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
(PBGC), a wholly-owned federal corporation. She has
spent most of her 28 years at PBGC in management,
and in the past five years in a group of internal
consultants that provides strategic planning, survey,
customer focus, change management, and facilitation services. You
may contact Lawson via e-mail at lawson.jacqueline@pbgc.gov .
Summer 2003 THE JOURNAL FOR QUALITY & PARTICIPATION 39