Benchmarking
Benchmarking is an improvement approach that seeks to enhance the performance of a product or process by analyzing market best practices. The team compares the product or process with the best examples to establish reference models or benchmarks. This way, the team understands the standards to adopt in order to remain relevant.
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Approach to Benchmarking
The normal benchmarking process can involve the following steps:
- Clarifying the Improvement Objective – The first step is to identify the area to improve. For example, the team may want to enhance the processes of a project. Another team may seek to improve the efficiency of a service delivery.
- Identifying References – The second step is to choose the companies or industries to monitor.
- Analyzing References – The next step involves gathering information about those companies or industries according to what we want to monitor.
- Analyzing Gaps – Next, an analysis of the gaps between the internal process and the external best practices should be conducted.
- Establishing Improvement Points – Finally, the feasibility and justification of potential improvements are analyzed, leading to a decision.