Performance Evaluation & Continuous Improvement Flashcards

In the Baldrige Excellence Framework, the 'results' category primarily evaluates:

Answer: Organizational performance and improvement outcomes

Baldrige Category 7 assesses performance results across products, customers, workforce, leadership, and finance.

A fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram is most useful for:

Answer: Organizing potential causes of a problem into categories

The Ishikawa diagram groups possible causes, such as people, methods, and machines, for a single effect.

A process has a sigma level of about 6. This corresponds to roughly how many defects per million opportunities?

Answer: 3.4

Six Sigma quality equals about 3.4 DPMO, allowing for a 1.5-sigma shift.

A consultant notices a KPI improved, but employees are gaming the metric at the expense of quality. This illustrates:

Answer: Goodhart's law

Goodhart's law states that a measure ceases to be a good measure once it becomes a target.

Which statement best distinguishes outputs from outcomes in engagement evaluation?

Answer: Outputs are deliverables produced; outcomes are the changes or benefits that result

Outputs are what was delivered, such as reports or trainings; outcomes are the resulting changes in performance.

When a pilot improvement shows strong results, the most appropriate next step in a continuous improvement cycle is to:

Answer: Standardize and scale the change, then continue monitoring

The Act phase standardizes successful changes and continues the cycle.

Which evaluation design best attributes a performance improvement to the consulting intervention itself?

Answer: Comparing the target group with a similar control group before and after

A pre/post design with a comparison group helps isolate the intervention's effect from other factors.