The Granite State Quality Award Criteria are the basis for selecting Award recipients and for providing feedback to applicants. In addition, the criteria have three other important purposes.
- To help raise organizational performance standards and expectations;
- To facilitate communication and sharing among and within organizations of all types based upon a common understanding of key operational performance requirements; and
- To serve as a working tool for planning, training and assessment.
The Criteria is a set of interrelated, results-oriented requirements. However, the Criteria provides a wide latitude in approaches to meeting the requirements. Accordingly, the Criteria do not prescribe:
- Specific quality tools, techniques, technologies, systems, or starting points
- How the organization itself should be organized
The Criteria does require that these and many other basic factors be regularly evaluated as part of the organization's improvement processes, since they are important and are likely to change as needs and strategies evolve.
The Criteria is nonprescriptive for three important reasons:
- The Criteria focuses on requirements that produce results and not on pre-set procedures, tools or organizational structures. Through this non-prescriptive approach, organizations are encouraged to develop and demonstrate creative, adaptive and flexible approaches to meeting basic requirements. The nonprescriptive nature of the requirements thus supports both incremental and major ("breakthrough") improvement.
- Selection of tools, techniques, systems and organizations usually depend upon many factors such as business size, business type, the company's stage of development, and employee capabilities.
- Focusing on outcomes that meet requirements rather than on specific procedures fosters better understanding, communication, and sharing, while encouraging diversity and creativity in approaches.
Criteria for Performance Excellence Goals
The Criteria are designed to help organizations enhance their competitiveness through focus on results-oriented goals:
- delivery of ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders
- improvement of overall organizational effectiveness and capabilities
- organizational and personal learning
Criteria for Performance Excellence Framework
The core values and concepts are embodied in seven Categories, as follows:
- Leadership
- Strategic Planning
- Customer Focus
- Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management
- Workforce Focus
- Operations Management
- Results
