“Any problem facing an agency, no matter how complex it may seem,
is likely to have occurred elsewhere,
be it in the public, private, or nonprofit sector. Identifying and evaluating the solutions developed by these other organizations is a critical step in
project planning. These experiences can shed light on what works -- and what doesn’t -- in the earliest stages
of your project development."

Source: Conducting Best and Current Practices Research: A Starter Kit, Ophelia Eglene, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, SUNY, 2000

In studying Six Sigma, one of the first principles students learn is the importance of process metrics. Baseline, entitlement and benchmark are all measurements to consider when attempting to improve a process. The same concepts apply when you attempt to improve your business as a whole.

Benchmarking is one of the best ways to learn from other companies how to tackle specific problems. Benchmarking also allows you to measure your company’s performance against others to determine what is possible in the market. From this sharing of information comes an opportunity to better serve your customers and employees.

The Six Sigma community offers Deployment Leaders, Master Black Belts and other practitioners a variety of ways to benchmark and share information.

Online Discussion Forums

Sometimes called Message Boards, these online discussions allow you to tap into the collective experience of a group of Six Sigma professionals. Post a question, comment or thought and get feedback from peers across a variety of industries and organizational levels. Discussion forums serve benchmarking’s primary purpose, which is to provide tried and tested best practice information from people who have been there.

iSixSigma.com has one of the largest Six Sigma discussion forums in the industry. More than 40,000 process improvement professionals read the Web site each month, and the discussion forum is one of the most popular areas. The site gets approximately 1,800 new posts per month, filling the archives with ideas and feedback that are available to any site user.

“I am amazed at the variety of professionals that use our online discussion forums,” says Michael Cyger, founder of iSixSigma.com. “We get posts from Black Belts, Master Black Belts, Deployment Leaders and even industry gurus. They are all looking for new ideas and information from their peers.”

While discussion forums are a great way to get a variety of feedback, keep in mind that it’s important to define exactly what you’re looking for. “I like to tell people that a thoughtful, well-worded question will always get thoughtful, well-worded answers. The opposite tends to hold true also,” says Cyger.

Industry Conferences

Access to industry experts and hundreds of your peers in desirable, off-site locations would be one way to describe industry conferences. In just two or three days, you can hear presentations from all walks of Lean and Six Sigma. Typically these conferences bring in speakers from companies that have had successful implementations, giving you access to benchmarking from the best of the best. Conferences also provide a good forum for learning about trends in the industry, which offers another way to benchmark what your competition is doing next.

Iindustry conferences offer quick hits of benchmarking data. Unlike discussion forums, they do offer opportunities for face-to-face networking and interaction with peers, which could provide avenues into other methods of sustained information sharing.

To make the most of industry conferences, take advantage of break out sessions with your peers. Most conferences offer programs outside of the main agenda to learn about specific topics or network with professionals in the same industry.

ISSSP offers Master Black Belt Circles at many Six Sigma and Lean events. These invite-only sessions are devoted to one topic around performance improvement, business strategy, or developing new skills. They provide not only timely information, but also the opportunity to meet and share information with other MBBs.

BMG's Deployment Leader Xchange Program

In an effort to provide opportunities for our clients to contact each other, BMG facilitates a Deployment Leader Xchange program, open to any current BMG customer. The program was designed to provide introductions between deployment leaders with similar interests across a variety of industries.

“For years, clients had been asking about what our other customers were doing and what they were learning through their deployment processes,” says Lynda Williams, the co-creator of BMG’s Deployment Leader Xchange Program. “We just decided it was time to bring our customers together to learn from each other.”

The BMG South Africa team kicked off its Xchange Program in July with great success. “This session was about introducing clients to each other; giving them an opportunity to meet, exchange best practices, ideas and lessons learned, and discuss critical success factors for their programs,” explains Raldu Nel, VP of Business Development.

BMG provided all attendees with contact information to drive more informal communications. “We didn’t want to be the gatekeeper to their communications. We want our clients to be able to contact each other directly when they have questions or issues they want to discuss with their peers,” Nel says.

The Global Customer Summit

Another forum for benchmarking is BMG’s Global Customer Summit. Now in its fifth year, the goal is to bring current BMG clients from all industries and countries together to discuss their deployments and learn from each other.

Similar to an industry conference, BMG develops a three-day schedule of presentations, workshops and networking opportunities, giving attendees ample time to discuss new methods, figure out solutions to problems and gather new ideas. Throughout the event, BMG’s clients can establish connections with other professionals who have encountered similar challenges.

BMG also brings in keynote speakers from experts outside the Six Sigma arena. This adds a new component to benchmarking by providing insights from organizations with a different view. Thought leaders in strategic planning, innovation and team building provide attendees with new ideas they can incorporate into their programs. Unlike traditional benchmarking, these speakers give customers additional best practices to try.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Of course, for benchmarking to truly work, companies must be willing to share their experiences with others. Concerns about competitive intelligence and corporate espionage often prevent business leaders from releasing benchmarking data. But if the goal is to continually improve the customer experience, all organizations benefit from pushing each other to come up with better ways to do business. Learning from each other’s mistakes and successes only speeds up that process, giving each new company an unanticipated pitfall to avoid. After all, without key metrics to measure against, how will you know if you’ve truly improved your business?