Participatory Benchmarking

Benchmarking is an activity where companies, public or private institutions, development programs etc. continuously engage in self-study and compare themselves with the leaders in their field so they can identify, adapt, and apply significantly better practices, more efficient use of resources and financial savings. Initially used as a practical tool to improve performance in business, it has nowadays become a widespread instrument in all kind of organizations and programmers.

Community based planning projects using benchmarks and indicators to measure progress on a participatory base have been growing rapidly in the last three decades. These projects can be found in many countries around the world at national, regional and city level.

In general terms, these projects have 5 features in common:

1. they attempt to integrate economic, social and environmental goals around some overall vision of development,

2. they set concrete benchmarks and develop appropriate indicators to monitor progress in achieving them,

3. the indicators and benchmarks are initiated, developed and monitored applying different forms of community participation processes, sometimes across the whole community, and sometimes through specialist panels with citizen participation,

4. they usually are long term (i.e. over 5 years) and iterative processes,

5. they have, or build up over time, some relationship to the formal processes of governance in their community.

To make participatory benchmarking successful, special attention should be drawn to link benchmarks and indicators in an appropriate way. As a traveler needs both a map and a compass, a community needs to know where they are going (the benchmarks or the map) and where they are now (the indicators or the compass). In the process of developing benchmarks and related indicators, the parties involved (citizens from different groups of interest and functions such as representatives of business i.e. the local or regional Chamber of Industry and Commerce, as well as civic associations i.e. consumers, parents, environmental groups, local government, experts, informal authorities) will have to make a choice from many different benchmarks and indicators in order to select those that best capture the aspirations of their community or group of communities. The key value of developing community benchmarks and indicators in a participatory process is that citizens work together to determine goals for their future and by participating in monitoring progress towards these goals they learn about and better understand the resources needed and the constraints to be faced.

The outcomes of these processes should be not just the benchmarks and indicators as such, but increased community activity (local projects and strategies, committees and meeting of people interested in sustainable development; improved standards in government processes, increased awareness and understanding of government and community priorities and, over time, more empowered communities.

Benchmarking should not be considered a one-off exercise. To be effective, it must become an integral part of an ongoing improvement process with the goal of keeping abreast of ever-improving best practice.

The benchmarking process includes the following steps:

• Self-assessment. Documentation and study of the vision, practices, and success measures of one's own organization or programmed in a participatory process, and decision what to benchmark. It is recommended to include one or several components of a programmed rather than an entire programmed in order to keep the project manageable, and to promote focus on the most important aspects.
  

• Comparison. Selection of whom to benchmark. Establishment of a benchmarking partnership. Study and assessment of partners with identification of differences and performance gaps. Determination whether practices are suitable/adaptable to other settings.
  

• Analysis and Adaptation. Ask why you are getting your results and why others are getting better results. While benchmarking is often called "borrowing shamelessly," practices generally require creative adaptation in a new context.
  

• Implementation. Think carefully about what enablers (e.g., resources, schedule changes) are needed. Communicate findings and build support for the changes you want to make. Create and implement an action plan to apply identified best practices. Translate the findings into a few core principles, and work from principles to strategies to action plans.
  

• Feedback. Carefully monitor and measure the results of your innovation and recalibrate if necessary.

For further information, please consult:
Benchmarking in Europe and The Public Sector Benchmarking service 

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