Shared Activity: Assessing Benchmarking Efforts While quality measurement and management tools can be highly effective drivers of strategy, they must be thoughtfully developed in order to be effective. The theme that recurs throughout this module applies here as well: timely and accurate data is vital to developing effective decisions and strategies.
Accurate data is also vital to developing responses and corrective action when achievement of objectives may be in jeopardy. Quality management tools such as benchmarking are valuable in taking these corrective actions.
To prepare for this Shared Activity: Review the benchmarking efforts of your own organisation (or one with which you are familiar). In particular, examine how this organisation measures customer (user) satisfaction and how performance is benchmarked.
To complete this Shared Activity: Create a Post that contains the following:
Explain this organisation's benchmarking efforts (or lack thereof). If benchmarking is employed, identify how the currently used benchmarks align with or address international standards. Explain the degree to which the existing benchmarks align with existing organisational goals.
Propose improvements which would better align benchmarks as needed. If benchmarking does not exist at any level within this organisation, identify some organisational goals that could benefit from benchmarking activities, and strategies you would recommend to employ benchmarking.
Visit the postings of your group members and comment on their analyses, suggesting any additional ways their organisations could improve the effectiveness of benchmarking activities, or how they could be implemented.