4 2021–2022 Education Criteria for Performance Excellence 

Education Criteria for Performance Excellence

Begin with the Organizational Profile

The Organizational Profile is the most appropriate starting point for self-assessment and for writing an application. It is critically important for the following reasons: 

• You can use it as an initial self-assessment. If you identify topics for which conflicting, little, or no information is available, use these topics for action planning.

• It sets the context for understanding your organization and how it operates, and allows you to address unique aspects

of your organization in your responses to the Education Criteria questions in categories 1–7. Your responses to all other

questions in the Criteria should relate to the organizational context you describe in this profile.

• It helps you identify gaps in key information about your organization and focus on key performance requirements and

results.

P Organizational Profile

The Organizational Profile is a snapshot of your organization and its strategic environment.

P.1 Organizational Description: What are your key organizational characteristics?

a. Organizational Environment

(1) Educational Program and Service Offerings What are your main educational program and servi

offerings (see the note on the next page)? What is the relative importance of each to your success? What modalities

do you use to deliver your educational programs and services?

(2) Mission, Vision, Values, and Culture What are your mission, vision, and values? Other than valu

are the characteristics of your organizational culture? What are your organization’s core competencies, and what

is their relationship to your mission?

(3) Workforce Profile What is your workforce profile? What recent changes have you experienced i

workforce composition or in your needs with regard to your workforce? What are

• your workforce or faculty/staff groups and segments;

• the educational requirements for different faculty/staff groups and segments;

• the key drivers that engage them;

• your organized bargaining units (union representation), if any; and

• your special health and safety requirements, if any?

(4) Assets What are your major facilities, equipment, technologies, and intellectual property?

(5) Regulatory Environment What are your key applicable occupational health and safety regulations; accreditation,

certification, or registration requirements; education sector standards; and environmental, financial, and

educational program and service regulations?

b. Organizational Relationships

(1) Organizational Structure What are your organizational leadership structure and governance structure? What

structures and mechanisms make up your organization’s leadership system? What are the reporting relationships

among your governance board, senior leaders, and parent organization, as appropriate?

(2) Students, Other Customers, and Stakeholders What are your key market segments, student an

customer groups, and stakeholder groups, as appropriate? What are their key requirements and expectations

for your educational programs and services, student and other customer support services, and operations,

including any differences among the groups?

(Continued on the next page)

From Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. 2021. 2021–2022 Baldrige Excellence Framework (Education): Leadership

and Management Practices for High Performance. Gaithersburg, MD: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of

Standards and Technology. https://www.nist.gov/baldrige.
Organizational Profile 5

(3) Suppliers, Partners, and Collaborators What are your key types of suppliers, partners, and collaborators? What role do they play in producing and delivering your key educational programs and services 

your student and other customer support services, and in enhancing your competitiveness? What role do they 

play in contributing and implementing innovations in your organization? What are your key supply-network 

requirements?

Terms in small caps are defined in the Glossary of Key Terms (pages 46–54).

Notes

P.1a(1). Educational program and service offerings are 

the activities you offer to engage students in learning or 

contribute to scientific or scholarly investigation. Modalities 

for delivering programs and services to your students 

might be direct or might be indirect, through partners and 

collaborators.

P.1a(2). If your organization has a stated purpose as well 

as a mission, you should include it in your response. Some 

organizations define a mission and a purpose, and some use 

the terms interchangeably. Purpose refers to the fundamental reason that the organization exists. Its role is to inspire 

the organization and guide its setting of values. 

P.1a(2). Your values are part of your organization’s culture. 

Other characteristics of your culture might include shared 

beliefs and norms that contribute to the uniqueness of the 

environment within your organization. 

P.1a(3). Workforce or faculty/staff groups and segments 

(including organized bargaining units) might be based on 

type of employment or contract-reporting relationship, 

location (including remote work), tour of duty, work 

environment, use of flexible work policies, or other factors. 

Organizations that also rely on volunteers and interns to 

accomplish their work should include these groups as part 

of their workforce. 

P.1a(5). Education standards might include local, state, or 

international statutory requirements and sector-wide codes 

of conduct and policy guidance, including compliance with 

research ethics. Depending on the regions in which you 

operate, environmental regulations might cover greenhouse 

gas emissions, carbon regulations and trading, and energy 

efficiency. 

P.1b(1). The Organizational Profile asks for the ”what” of 

your leadership system (its structures and mechanisms). 

Questions in categories 1 and 5 ask how the system is used.

P.1b(2). Student and other customer groups might be 

based on common expectations, behaviors, preferences, or 

profiles. Within a group, there may be segments based on 

differences, commonalities, or both. You might subdivide 

your market into segments based on educational programs, 

services, or features; delivery modalities; geography; or other 

defining factors.

P.1b(2). Student, other customer, stakeholder, and 

operational requirements and expectations will drive your 

organization’s sensitivity to the risk of program, service, 

support, and supply-network interruptions, including those 

due to natural disasters and other emergencies. 

P.1b(3). Suppliers and partners should include, as appropriate, key feeder schools that prepare students for your 

organization. 

P.1b(3). Your supply network consists of the entities 

involved in producing your programs and services and delivering them to your students. For some organizations, these 

entities form a chain, in which one entity directly supplies 

another. Increasingly, however, these entities are interlinked 

and exist in interdependent rather than linear relationships. 

The Education Criteria use the term supply network, rather 

than supply chain, to emphasize the interdependencies 

among organizations and their suppliers. 

For additional guidance on this item, see the Education Criteria 

Commentary (https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/baldrige-criteria

-commentary-education).
6 2021–2022 Education Criteria for Performance Excellence 

P.2 Organizational Situation: What is your organization’s strategic situation?

a. Competitive Environment

(1) Competitive Position What are your relative size and growth in your education sector or the markets you serve? 

How many and what types of competitors do you have? 

(2) Competitiveness Changes What key changes, if any, are affecting your competitive situation, including changes 

that create opportunities for innovation and collaboration, as appropriate? 

(3) Comparative Data What key sources of comparative and competitive data are available from within the education sector? What key sources of comparative data are available from outside the education sector? What limitations, if any, affect your ability to obtain or use these data?

b. Strategic Context

What are your key strategic challenges and advantages? 

c. Performance Improvement Syst

What is your performance improvement system, including your processes for evaluation and improvement of key

organizational projects and processes?

Terms in small caps are defined in the Glossary of Key Terms (pages 46–54).

Notes

P.2a. Education organizations are frequently in highly 

competitive environments. Aside from direct competition 

for students, they must often compete to secure financial, 

volunteer, and human resources. This competition may 

involve other education organizations, as in competition for 

grant funding or suppliers, or the opportunity to provide 

supplemental services. For public education organizations, 

competition may involve other public agencies or departments, as in the competition for scarce budget resources. 

P.2b. Strategic challenges and advantages might be in the 

areas of educational programs and services, operations, 

societal contributions, and workforce. They might relate to 

finances, including funding mechanisms; organizational 

structure and culture; emerging technology; digital integration; data and information security and cybersecurity; 

emerging competitors; changing stakeholder requirements; 

faculty and staff capability or capacity; and brand recognition and reputation.

P.2c. The Baldrige Scoring System (pages 29–34) uses 

performance improvement through learning and integration as a factor in assessing the maturity of organizational 

approaches and their deployment. This question is intended 

to set an overall context for your approach to performance 

improvement. The approach you use should be related to 

your organization’s needs. Approaches that are compatible 

with the overarching systems approach provided by the 

Baldrige framework might include implementing PDSA 

methodology; completing accreditation self-studies; 

applying nationally validated systems to improve teaching 

performance; and performing independent institutional, 

departmental, or program assessments. It also might include 

using a Lean Enterprise System, applying Six Sigma methodology, using standards from ISO (e.g., the 9000 or 14000 

series, or sector-specific standards), using decision science, 

or employing other improvement tools. 

For additional guidance on this item, see the Education Criteria 

Commentary (https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/baldrige-criteria

-commentary-education).