The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model, is a self-assessment framework for measuring the strengths and areas for improvement of an organisation across all of its activities. The term ‘excellence’ is used because the Excellence Model focuses on what an organisation does, or could do, to provide an excellent service or product to its customers, service users or stakeholders.
While its origins lie in the private sector, public and voluntary sector organisations can also benefit from using the Excellence Model. It is non-prescriptive and does not involve strictly following a set of rules or standards, but provides a broad and coherent set of assumptions about what is required for a good organisation and its management. Each organisation can use it in its own way to manage and develop improvement, under the control of those who use the methods rather than an external evaluator.
