Where does benchmarking fit? Crafting a role for sharing best practices.

Benchmarking strategy alone may get you started, but the development of a sustainable program becomes the key to success. That development involves characteristics such as educating and nurturing appropriate benchmarking behaviors, building a best practice network to share learning and developing a continuous updating mechanism. With clear direction and these supporting systems in place, benchmarking can be a powerful tool to help you innovate today and stay on the right track for tomorrow. A thorough understanding of the benchmarking can avoid the "Benchmarks are great," "More benchmarks are always better," and "Why do I have so much trouble innovating?" cycle that has plagued many who embraced this idea without first seeing its risks to culture and improvement. With the proper program, benchmarks can add the critical shared learning and best practice role that successful change initiatives need.