HKSM

A disciplined practice where an organization regularly compares its processes and performance measures with those of top performers, inside or outside its industry, to stay competitive and find improvement opportunities.

Key Points

• Compares processes, outcomes, and KPIs to best-in-class organizations to reveal performance gaps.
• Can be internal (across teams), competitive (within the same industry), or cross-industry/functional.
• Typical steps: define scope and metrics, gather comparable data, analyze gaps, set targets, and implement changes.
• Requires consistent, apples-to-apples metrics and periodic updates to keep insights current and relevant.

Example

An agile product team tracks cycle time, throughput, and escaped defects each sprint. They compare these metrics to leading companies and high-performing internal teams, discover their cycle time is longer, adopt WIP limits and CI/CD, and then re-benchmark after several iterations to measure improvement.

PMP Example Question

While planning quality, a Scrum team compares its cycle time and defect escape rate to those of top-performing organizations to set improvement targets. Which technique are they using?

1. Benchmarking
2. Trend analysis
3. Root cause analysis
4. Affinity diagramming

Correct Answer: A — Benchmarking

Explanation: Benchmarking involves comparing processes and performance metrics to best-in-class to identify gaps and inform improvement goals.