Benchmarking is the process of comparing one’s business processes and performance metrics to industry bests or best practices from other companies. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. In the process of best practice benchmarking, management identifies the best firms in their industry, or in another industry where similar processes exist, and compares the results and processes of those studied (the “targets”) to one’s own results and processes. In this way, they learn how well the targets perform and, more importantly, the business processes that explain why these firms are successful.
Benchmarking is used to measure performance using a specific indicator (cost per unit of measure, productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure) resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others.
Also referred to as “best practice benchmarking” or “process benchmarking”, this process is used in management and particularly strategic management, in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practice companies’ processes, usually within a peer group defined for the purposes of comparison. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to make improvements or adapt specific best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often treated as a continuous process in which organizations continually seek to improve their practices.
In the Development Lifecycle, benchmark issues may focus on the Percentage of Defects identified in Requirements, Design, Code, Test and Production respectively. Organizations seek to learn who is “best” and how their organization compares. They also seek to learn how those results are being achieved.
Benchmarking can be as simple as gathering whatever published reports and documents (Annual Reports, advertising materials, newspaper articles, etc. ) are available. The primary issue with this approach is that it is often lacking in the critical details needed to determine whether the results are credible and applicable.
