5th Annual DOD Conference

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Aligning Baldridge and AACSB Criteria to Enhance
Education

• Andres Fortino
• Associate Dean
• George Mason University

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Session Mission

• George Mason University's School of Management is
  in the process of aligning the Baldrige criteria
  to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools
  of Business (AACSB) criteria and undertaking
  efforts to measure and optimize its
  organizational performance.
• This session will describe the process that was
  created and the preliminary data and results from
  its application.
• Anyone interested in using Baldrige as the
  platform for performance tracking and continuous
  improvement may benefit from attending this
  session

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Value Proposition

• The Baldrige Quality Program may be used
  successfully to better manage the performance of
  educational organizations and their accreditation
  initiatives
• Note that the purpose IS NOT pursuing the
  Baldrige award BUT
• Manage the institution better
• Maintain its accreditation

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The Baldrige Initiative

• The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was
  created by Public Law 100-107, signed into law on
  August 20, 1987
• It was thought that a national quality award
  program the US would help improve quality and
  productivity by
• helping to stimulate American companies to
  improve quality and productivity while
  obtaining a competitive edge
• recognizing the achievements of those companies
  that improve the quality and providing an
  example to others
• establishing guidelines and criteria that can be
  used by business, industrial, governmental, and
  other organizations in evaluating their own
  quality improvement efforts
• providing specific guidance for other American
  organizations that wish to learn how to manage
  for high quality by making available detailed
  information on how winning organizations were
  able to change their cultures and achieve
  eminence

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The Baldrige Award

• Since 1988, 684 applications have been submitted
  for the Baldrige award from a wide variety of
  types and sizes of companies
• From 1988-2002 51 organizations have received the
  award
• Over 1,400 Baldrige examiners have been trained
  to analyze performance in organizations
• Baldrige is seen in the United States and abroad
  as the standard for improving performance
• provides a clearly marked path toward excellence
  that any organization

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Baldrige for Education

• The Criteria are the basis for
• organizational self-assessments,
• making Awards,
• giving feedback to applicants.
• In addition, the Criteria have three important
  roles
• to help improve organizational performance
  practices, capabilities, and results
• to facilitate communication and sharing of best
  practices information among U.S. organizations of
  all types
• to serve as a working tool for understanding and
  managing performance and for guiding
  organizational planning and opportunities for
  learning
• Education Criteria for Performance Excellence
  Goals The Criteria are designed to help
  organizations use an integrated approach to
  organizational performance management that
  results in
• delivery of ever-improving value to students and
  stakeholders, contributing to education quality
• improvement of overall organizational
  effectiveness and capabilities
• organizational and personal learning

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The Baldrige System

• Seven broad categories make up the criteria
• leadership,
• strategic planning,
• customer and market focus,
• information and analysis,
• human resource focus,
• process management
• business results

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Baldrige Support System Elements

• The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence
• provides a systems perspective for understanding
  performance management
• http//baldrige.nist.gov/Education_Criteria.htm
• Are We Making Progress? Survey
• designed to help you know if your perceptions
  agree with those of your employees
• http//baldrige.nist.gov/PDF_files/Progress.pdf
• Survey Results from 2002 Examiner Training
• Approximately 200 Examiners voluntarily filled
  out the Are We Making Progress? survey during
  their May 2002 training sessions -- use it for
  benchmarking
• http//baldrige.nist.gov/PDF_files/Examiner_Survey
  _Results.pdf

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• New Baldrige criteria for educational
  institutions
• http//baldrige.nist.gov/Education_Criteria.htm

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• Areas of performance monitoring and scoring system

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The Accreditation Process

• Educational institutions have accreditation
  responsibilities
• University level e.g. SACS
• Professional/school level e.g. ABET for
  engineering or AACSB for business
• These are narrowly focused on dimension of
  educational quality
• They are concerned with organizational efficiency
  only peripherally

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AACSB Accreditation

• AACSB is the premier global accrediting body for
  business schools
• Based on the American business school
• Over 1500 business schools world-wide
• 454 are AACSB accredited
• Extensive criteria
• http//www.aacsb.edu/accreditation/standards.asp
• Requires periodic peer review with visits
• New criteria coming out continuous review

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Sample AACSB Standards
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Using Baldrige

• Use Baldrige as platform for managing the
  educational process with quality and achieve high
  performance while fulfilling accreditation
  obligations
• Accreditation was a subset of Baldrige
• Baldrige was a more robust platform than other
  performance management scoring systems e.g.
  balanced scorecard
• Had survey instruments with benchmark data, used
  a systems approach, was more comprehensive,
  matched accreditation

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GMU School of Management

• George Mason University is a large public state
  university in Northern Virginia
• 27,000 students, 3 campuses (Fairfax, Arl., PWC)
• SOM is the business school
• 3500 undergraduates
• 400 graduate students in the MBA, EMBA, MSTM,
  MSBM programs
• 80 faculty, 50 staff
• 12M per year budget

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SOM as a Case Study

• Why we implemented Baldrige
• Wanted a scoring system to check status
• Wanted a system for managing all aspects of the
  school
• Wanted to fulfill AACSB obligations including
  new continuous improvement requirement without
  extra work
• Wanted to improve the school!

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How We Implemented Baldrige

• Made commitment to use Baldrige for managing
  conscious decision not to try for award
• Sorted Baldrige extensive list of performance
  monitoring criteria into three categories
• A-items those that matched AASCB criteria
• B-items Baldrige items needed for managing
• C-items the rest of Baldrige not to be
  implemented
• Found that A and B-items made up only 50

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How We Implemented Baldrige

• Matched AACSB items to Baldrige items
• Many AACSB and Baldrige items were the same or
  similarwhich gave us the impetus to implement
  Baldrige
• Wanted to make sure all AACSB criteria were being
  monitored and considered
• Have an obligation to monitor and improve
  educational performance
• Created a map between the two to make sure no
  AACSB items were ignored
• Assisted in documentation

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Matching AACSB to Baldrige
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Documentation

• We immediately started the documentation process
• Many of these documents already existed
• Created an electronic collection point
• Website indexed via AACSB and Baldrige
• Accessible to all managers
• The MIS system
• Basis for managing the organization

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Performance Improvement

• Started the performance improvement process
• Getting started survey
• Are We Making Progress survey
• Summarized and examined results in strategic
  planning meetings and subsequent tactical senior
  staff meetings
• Used survey results from 1400 Baldrige examiners
  as baseline data to compare
• Resolve any problems using performance
  improvement techniques (e.g. Six Sigma)

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Surveyed Faculty and Staff
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Use of Survey

• Repeat use of survey yearly
• Prepare for senior staff strategic planning
  sessions
• Build base of baseline data

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Use Baldrige For Radical Improvements

• Baldrige has extensive scoring criteria for each
  of the seven areas
• Examine areas of particular concern in detail
  using gathered documentation
• Use these criteria to go deeper into identifying
  problems
• Solve problems using known performance
  improvement techniques (e.g. Six Sigma)

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• Scoring guidelines for approach development
  criteria

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• Scoring guidelines for results oriented criteria

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Summary

• The Baldrige Quality Program may be used to
  manage an educational institution better
• Some work is needed to align the extensive system
  to fit organizational characteristics
• It may also be aligned with institutions
  accreditation requirements