In search of excellence: the EFQM excellence model

In pursuit of excellence, many organizations are discovering that there is no single Holy Grail for sixteen and that excellence comes from working on a set of critical organizational issues that, furthermore, must be properly combined in scope and depth if they are to produce. the desired results. results.

This holistic approach to organizational issues is addressed through various management models or programs. Each model involves what it considers critical organizational issues and then, to a greater or lesser extent, goes on to describe and explain them. Examples of these are the Viable System Model, McKinsey 7S, ISO 9004, the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, TQM and of course the EFQM Excellence Model and CAF (The EFQM model adjusted for Public Organizations).

The EFQM Excellence Model, faithful to TQM concepts, has two important characteristics: it is customer-centric and it is a self-assessment tool. The former incorporate continuous improvement into the organization, while the latter put in the foreground not what the organization offers, but what its internal and external customers / stakeholders receive, that is, the emphasis is not on service offerings. , but in the perception and experience of the users of the service. .

The EFQM Model is basically a business management model to help organizations achieve excellence by offering guidance and evaluation towards that objective and has 3 components:

(a) The fundamental concepts that serve as underlying principles of the model

(b) The Criteria that constitute the organizational themes and serve as focal areas to collect the points of orientation and necessary actions that the model expands and explains. They are divided into two groups: facilitators and results. Each criterion is divided into a series of parts, usually 4 or 5, which consist of typical excellent company behaviors.

(c) The RADAR, which offers an evaluation and scoring framework, and is an acronym for its 4 elements: Targeted Results and three Enablers: Focus, Implementation, Evaluation, and Refinement. The elements are divided into attributes and for each attribute some guidance points are provided.

The Model Framework describes the Criteria in a diagram that emphasizes their cause and effect relationship and can be seen in the image on the EFQM page: http://www.efqm.org/efqm-model/brand-your-orporation- as- a sponsor-model-of-excellence-efqm.

What is of value: That a set of multiple problems looms endlessly around the functioning of the organization is not new. Nor is the knowledge that to achieve successful results, an organization must address all of these issues simultaneously. However, it is a valuable guide for organizations striving to improve, the development of EFQM content for the Criteria and its subdivision, as well as guidance notes offered from best-in-class organizations.

Important and distinctive is the trait of self-assessment. Evaluators, to carry out their work successfully, must know all the organizational aspects and must have a good knowledge of the various management tools available, such as KPIs and other measures, the BSC, strategic issues, management tools of the quality, action plans and the like.

The great benefit of an organization conducting such an evaluation internally with its own people is that it deepens their knowledge and becomes more aware of the steps they need to take to improve.

The EFQM model offers, I believe, the most desirable path to organizational excellence; contains critical issues and explains them with best-in-class examples, separates facilitators from results areas, showing the need to focus efforts on potential areas rather than just results, and Most importantly, it offers a self-assessment tool for organizations to audit themselves, learn, and continually improve their path to excellence.

Appendix:

(1) The origins of the EFQM Excellence Model are found in the European Conventions and Charter of Human Rights and it complies with the Principles of the United Nations Global Compact. For more details on EFQM, visit their website.

(2) For American organizations, a similar purpose model for excellence is the Baldridge Performance Excellence Program.

(3) Public organizations based on the EFQM model have built a similar model, CAF, a common evaluation framework. CAF has very similar criteria but differs in its way of evaluation and scoring and uses the PDCA cycle instead of the RADAR with different guidance points for a successful implementation