The Sterling Council's Annual Examiner Training

This portion of my site relates to the reader what personal impressions, opinions, and learning I have developed from attending the 1999 Annual Examiner Training.  I have pulled some graphics from the Sterling web page into this page so it will have the same flavor.

One goal I set for myself this year was to become a Sterling Examiner to serve the cause of quality in Florida.  I applied and was invited to submit a case study.  Because I completed my case study, I was then eligible for the examiner training.

The understanding I had of the Sterling Criteria and its Challenge before I attended the Examiner Training was minimal at best.  After having attended the training in St. Pete the week of the 8th of November, I now realize just how much knowledge, experience, and hard work goes into the process.  Anyone who was selected to go through this training and has served on a team to assess and organization, deserves your utmost respect.

When selected, the Sterling office gives you a case study to analyze.  They provide you with directions for its completion. You work out of about four books to apply the criteria and create the beginnings of a feedback report. Your turn this in and then you are grouped with others for the annual training session.  There were two this year.  I attended the first session Nov. the 10th, 11th, and 12th.

The training session was packed with excellent information about how to really conduct an examination.  They trained us in all aspects of the process.  We worked each day from 8 until 6, then went back to our hotel to do about two hours of homework. It was grueling to say the least.  I got through it but not without pain I assure you.

Mark Blazey was the lead facilitator and lead us through some excellent exercises to strengthen our abilities to write, analyze, work in teams, and prepare our feedback.  This training was intense and has ramped me up with regard to my skills of organizational diagnoses and feedback.  Mark Blazey is a senior Examiner with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and works with other Award programs across the US like Nebraska.

I encourage anyone willing to make this kind of commitment for their development to apply next year.  Also, make sure you attend the Sterling Conference on June 30 - May 2 of 2000!!

Here is the mission of the Sterling Quality Office and they mean business:
"Our mission is to foster continuous quality improvement to enhance Florida's competitive edge and quality of life."

EXAMINER PREPARATION AND TRAINING

Training will be provided each year to the Board of Examiners of the Florida Sterling Council. Each Examiner is required to attend all of the three-day Examiner Training session and the one-day site visit training. Examiners will have a choice of two training session dates for the three-day session. The site visit training is only offered once. For those examiners not intimately familiar with the Sterling criteria a one-day training course prior to the three day Examiner training session is highly recommended. The one-day Criteria training sessions will be held during the months of July through September, 1998.

EXAMINER'S TIME AND TRAVEL

Each Examiner should be prepared to evaluate either the Governor's Sterling Award (GSA) application with Site Visit or the Sterling Quality Challenge (SQC) applications. The time required for the application review process may be twenty to forty hours plus the one-day consensus meeting with the Examiner Team. In addition, the Site Visits will require travel and up to one full week of review on-site depending on the size of the organizations. (Schedule and Commitment Required)  In all, the time commitment could be anywhere between 150 - 200 hours during the year.

I am a very fortunate person to hold a position from which I can affect change in organizations statewide.  I deliver training essential to the fundamental understanding of quality and the criteria put forth in the Sterling Challenge.  I work with around twenty to thirty participants at a time for four days straight on management topics relating to individual/team/organization issues such as leadership, teams, ethics, etc.  In one of the courses I deliver called Level III, I spend about 3.5 hours leading the participants through the Sterling Challenge.  They assess themselves and their organization following the Sterling Challenge Self Assessment Document.  Sometimes, the participants are members of an organization that has already taken the challenge so they can compare their assessment with their organization's submission.  If the organization has obtained a feedback report from a Sterling examination team in response to the challenge, we use it to compare with their own perspective of the sterling criteria as well.  This makes for a rich opportunity to understand management issues from all levels.

I am truly happy to have participated in the Sterling process so far.

Here is a benchmarking site that looks interesting.