The following article appeared in
Best Practice Measurement Strategies, January 2002
Melcrum Publishing, Ltd.,

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Defining benchmark questions for great results

By Angela D. Sinickas, ABC

 Part of the challenge of determining the questions to ask during benchmarking is to match the questions to the purpose of the study and the outcomes you are trying to achieve. Below is a breakdown of some of the issues regarding benchmarking questions that need to be addressed before beginning a benchmarking exercise.

• Qualitative or quantitative questions:
  Will the questions be completely open-ended
  Example: "What are your best practices for …?"
  Or will participants be asked to choose from pre-selected options?
  Example: "Which of the following communication roles is your communication department responsible for, involved in, or not involved in at all?
  Will participants need to calculate staffing numbers and budget dollars based on highly consistent criteria for comparison purposes?
  Example: "Please provide the annual cost of your publication, including staff salaries and most vendor costs, but not including benefits or other overhead costs, postage or shipping."
  
• Scope of questions:
  Will the questions be about one or two specific types of communication or the full range of internal and external communication?
  
• Number of questions:
  If you have a lot of questions, you may need to limit the number of companies you can expect to take that amount of time to participate. Or else, ask a greater number of companies questions on only some areas of communication for which they are best known. For example, a company well known for employee communication might not be as good a candidate for crisis PR questions if they're not in an industry that deals with crises on a regular basis.

The table below shows a snapshot of the similarities and differences of the types of questions asked for four actual benchmarking projects and how that varied according to the original purpose for conducting benchmarking.

.	Company A	Company B	Company C	Company D
Purpose of study	To look for new ideas in the way the company handles three specific elements of communication	To rebuild a world-class global internal communication department after years of cutbacks	To provide efficiency comparisons on budget and staffing required by the finance department	To help build a communication department ready to support a company soon to double in size
Main focus of study	• best practices	• best practices • some staffing and budget questions • department structure and reporting	• best practices • quantitative staffing and budget questions • some roles and responsibilities • comparisons of effectiveness	• best practices • quantitative staffing and budget questions • roles and responsibilities • department structure and reporting relationships
Areas about which questions were asked	• customer communication • face-to-face employee communication • communication measurement	• internal communication only, with focus on publications and intranet	• customer communication • customer and employee feedback • public affairs • employee communication • communication design	• employee communication • investor relations • Web • PR • product publicity • public affairs • community relations • events • speechwriting
Questions per company	11-26	80 (all in person)	17-100 (companies were asked only about areas they were known for doing well)	240
Companies participating	11	8	20	5
Outcomes	some new ideas incorporated in plans	resulting strategic plan approved by senior management	department congratulated by senior management on great effectiveness at reasonable cost	CEO hired senior VP of communication, who now has most communication functions reporting to her

Angela Sinickas, ABC, is president of Sinickas Communications, Inc., a communication consultancy specializing in helping corporations achieve business results through targeted diagnostics and practical solutions. You can visit her new website, CommToolbox.com, to see the automated planning, measurement, and benchmarking tools she has developed based on her manual, How to Measure Your Communication Programs.