TURNKEY PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TOOLKITS--Helping managers and consultants assess and improve the delivery of programs and services in the public sector.
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TURNKEY PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TOOLKITS--Helping managers and consultants assess and improve the delivery of programs and services in the public sector.
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This image presents the table of contents of the Benchmarking Guide.
This image presents the cover page of the Benchmarking Guide.

Benchmarking Guide (8 pages)

$10.00 $0.00

The Benchmarking Guide (8 pages in Word) describes the key steps to carry out successful comparisons with best practices of other national or international jurisdictions for a public sector function.  

The guide highlights challenges and guiding principles, and includes a work plan.  Key benchmarking steps are:

  • Determine the scope of the benchmarking
  • Seek the participation of benchmark organizations
  • Compare delivery models and identify best practices
  • Summarize the results of the comparisons and assess the implications for the organization.
You will receive an email with a link to download the guide in a Word editable format.  

    Clarify purpose of benchmarking

    You will first need to clarify what you want to get out of the benchmarking.  Objectives are typically to:

    • Obtain information on the service delivery models and practices of similar programs or services in other jurisdictions or the private sector

    • Identify the most common and best practices and how the current practices of a program/service compare with these best practices

    • Compare service delivery costs and performance with those of other jurisdictions.

    Pitfalls to avoid

    Benchmarking is not easy to do.  You can spend a lot of time spinning your wheels.  There is often too much information, and unfortunately not the information that you need.  Also, benchmark organizations do not want to spend a lot of time giving you information on their organization if they do not receive value in return.  Typical challenges include:

    • Clarifying the objectives of the benchmarking study—you will need to seek agreement on these objectives and use them as a guide post throughout the study

    • The high volume of information collected and the need to identify the specific information that is relevant to your requirements (this requires judgment and knowledge of the function being benchmarked)

    • Availability of information—information may not always be readily available to address those questions that are of specific interest to you (for example, cost information is always difficult to obtain)

    • Seeking the participation of other jurisdictions in the study depending on their priorities and the level of interest of other jurisdictions in the subject matter

    • The elapsed time required to conduct the work given the time required to seek the participation of the benchmark organizations and the level of detail required of the analysis

    • The sensitivity of the participating organizations to sharing the information with each other or with the client organization sponsoring the study.

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