First Step Assessment

The First Step Toward Excellence: the Quickest, Easiest Way to Identify and Prioritize Improvement Opportunities 

This process is the quickest, easiest way to help leaders identify and prioritize improvement opportunities – through your own lens or the perspective of your team. First Step is a simple set of 19 questions that helps leaders identify where their organization may have gaps. Take it as an individual (free!) or as a team ($500 for members) to identify areas of consensus or differences of opinion.

Complete the form below to take that First Step on the journey to excellence.

(Or contact us to set up a First Step team assessment.)

Company Details

Please Answer the Following

The following 19 questions are written to be answered by choosing the response on a 5-point Likert scale; with 1 being Never and 5 being Always.

Question 1

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Effective leaders promote organizational core values, set performance expectations, and promote an organization-wide focus on stakeholders, customers, workforce, empowerment, learning, and innovation. Without the guidance of the senior leaders, each member of the organization is free to choose his or her own priorities and expectations which may lead to people working at cross-purposes. This could result in employees becoming frustrated and customers having widely different experiences with varying degrees of satisfaction.

Question 2

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Effective senior leaders use varied appropriate methods of communicating with employees throughout the organization to ensure that the core values and priorities are understood by everyone. At the same time, it is important that employees have means of getting important information to the leaders about customers, process performance, organizational changes, and so forth so leaders can make informed decisions.

Question 3

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Without compliance to applicable laws and regulations, the organization runs the risk of being fined, sanctioned, or even being shut down. If the organization does not operate in an ethical manner, customers - or employees - may abandon your organization for competitors.

Question 4

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Strategic planning helps provide a basis for aligning the organization's work processes with its strategic direction to ensure that people and processes throughout the organization are working in concert with each other. Without a strategic plan, people and processes may be at cross-purposes. When this happens, resources are often misused or sub-optimized and overall organizational effectiveness and competitiveness is impacted.

Question 5

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Once the strategic direction is established, the organization needs to have plans to implement its strategy and make progress on its goals. To make these plans work, financial, human, and other resources must be in place to ensure that the appropriate work can actually be accomplished. If the resources are not in place, the workers will struggle to carry out the plans.

Question 6

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Without action plans that flow throughout the entire organization, the organization runs the risk that the desired outcomes will not be achieved. Action plans should help all employees understand how their work fits into the organization's strategy and success and ensure that each individual has the resources to carry out these plans.

Question 7

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

While every organization has some product or service that they provide to customers, it is not always clear that the organization actually has processes in place to ensure that the products and services are effectively delivered to all customers in a way that meets their needs fully. Without systematic processes for delivering products and services, the customer experience may vary in quality.

Question 8

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Organizations that systematically listen to their customers better understand customer expectations and needs, identify opportunities for innovation, more rapidly address complaints and issues, and build stronger relationships with customers. Without a method of listening to customers, the organization may miss opportunities to improve customer experience and overall customer satisfaction.

Question 9

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

If your organization seeks to have satisfied customers, the people working in the organization need to know what value is supposed to be delivered to the customers. It is this value that leads to customer retention, engagement, and positive referral. If employees do not understand the value of the service or product, the organization is at risk of not delivering what customers want or need. But, when employees understand the value that customers need and want, customers are more satisfied and engaged.

Question 10

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

For an organization to be successful in the long term, customers need to be satisfied with the products and services. The only way to know if the customers are satisfied is to have processes to obtain this information. This information can be gathered by using surveys or other tools such as focus groups, observation, on-line comments, and so forth.

Question 11

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

In order for leaders to make fact-based decisions, it is necessary for the organization to know what data and information would be useful. Without the availability of facts and accurate data, decisions will be made based on hunches or opinions of leaders, which may lead to incorrect decisions.

Question 12

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

When appropriate leading and lagging indicators are available to leaders in the organization, it is still necessary for these leaders to have a method of reviewing, analyzing, and taking action on the information including, as appropriate, how that information is changing over time. This includes reviewing data in appropriate timeframes. If data are showing unfavorable trends, leaders can then take appropriate action before major problems occur.

Question 13

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

For employees to make proper decisions while performing their duties, they need to have access to appropriate information in a timely manner. If the data are not available and accessible as needed, employees may make decisions based on their own opinion and whatever information they have, which could impact process performance, customer experience, and overall organizational outcomes.

Question 14

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Even if employees understand the value that customers expect, those employees need to know how to do the work to deliver that value. Without processes to manage the most important work, employees may make their own decisions on what is most important and may not deliver the value that customers expect.

Question 15

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

For employees to do their best, they need to feel safe and supported. If employees do not feel safe, their energy may be directed to their own safety and security. In addition, when employees feel supported, they are able to put their energy into doing the right things for your customers. Employees who feel safe and supported are also more likely to stay with your organization (i.e., lower employee turnover).

Question 16

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Satisfied workers are better equipped to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. The only way for leaders to know if workers are satisfied is to have a process to determine the satisfaction levels of the workforce. Leaders need to understand the factors that lead to satisfaction in the workforce when making changes to ensure an effective outcome.

Question 17

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

For workers to effectively do their jobs, they need to know how to best do those jobs. The only way to make certain this happens is to ensure that the workers get the appropriate training and development. Training can come in many forms including classroom, online, on-the-job, mentoring or job shadowing, job rotation, and many other ways. Effective training better enables employees in their current roles, and also helps prepare them for future roles and/or changing organizational needs.

Question 18

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

Innovation leads to new and better ways to get things done. It may also lead to improvements in the products and services your organization provides, increasing the value you offer to customers and other stakeholders. If your organization has processes to encourage innovation, you have means of empowering people to come up with breakthrough improvements. Without this, your organization runs the risk of being left behind by competition and changing markets.

Question 19

1=Never | 2=Seldom | 3=Occasionally | 4=Frequently | 5=Always

For your organization to be successful, you need to provide the products or services that meet the requirements of your customers. In order to do that, you need to have processes to ensure that the organization designs the products to meet these requirements and that the work is managed to ensure that the products do, in fact, meet these requirements. Highly effective organizations have systematic ways of designing, managing, and then improving their key work processes.

Question 20

Question 21

“I wish I had discovered Baldrige a couple decades earlier.”

-Jack Priggen, CEO, Cardinal of Minnesota, Ltd

ready to learn more?

Want to learn more about PEN, our events, assessments, or membership in our network?
We’d love the chance to chat and answer any questions you might have.

612-462-3577