The Seven baldrige categories

1.0 Leadership: This category examines how your organization’s Senior Leaders guide and sustain your organization. Also examined are your organization’s Governance and how your organization addresses its ethical, legal and community responsibilities.
2.0 Strategic Planning: This category examines how your organization develops strategic objectives (Strategies) and action plans (tactics). Also examined are how your chosen Strategic Objectives and Action Plans are deployed and changed if circumstances require and how progress is measured.
3.0 Customer and Market Focus: This category examines how your organization determines requirements, needs, expectations and preferences of customers and markets. Also examined is how your organization builds relationships with customers and determines the key factors that lead to customer acquisition, satisfaction, loyalty, retention and to business expansion and sustainability.
4.0 Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management: This category examines how your organization selects, gathers, analyzes, manages and improves its data, information and knowledge assets. Also examined is how your organization reviews its performance.
5.0 Human Resource Focus: This category examines how your organization’s work systems and employee learning and motivation enable all employees to develop and utilize their full potential in alignment with your organizations overall objectives, strategies and action plans. Also examined are your organization’s efforts to build and maintain a work environment and an employee support climate conducive to performance excellence and to personal and organizational growth.
6.0 Process Management: This category examines the key aspects of your organization’s process management, including key product, service and organizational processes for creating customer and organizational value and key support processes. This category encompasses all key processes of all work units.
7.0 Results: This category examines your organization’s performance and improvement in key business areas – product and service outcomes, customer satisfaction, financial and marketplace performance, human resource outcomes, operational performance and leadership and social responsibility. Performance levels are examined relative to those of competitors and other organizations providing similar products and services.

For more details see: http://www.quality.nist.gov/