Talk:Benchmarking in Project Management

Anna: Just a few pointers for you article: It is very important that you keep you focus on the tool/method itself and that you really relate it properly to the overall topic of project management. The article you are making should be a contribution that others can read if they ever need this specific tool when managing a project. So maybe focus more on the use of benchmarking within project management and a little less on the overall use of benchmarking in the external/internal environment of a company.

Reviewer 1, S997303

Hi Dimak

• Benchmarking is a very interesting topic, and it seems a bit difficult to structure, but I think you do it nicely and according to the requirements for the method article.

• Your point 2.2 is very fine and I think it is relevant to describe the development. I like your figure 2 with benchmarking generations, but the figure could be more readable, especially if you print out the article the figure is blurred.

• Also Figure 4 could be a little bigger and clearer, especially because I am curious to read the benchmarking parameters in the score card chart.

• In section 3 I could suggest you to consider creating a table listing different phases in project management and the benchmarking tools to be recommended in the different phases. This could provide the reader with an overview of how to use benchmarking in different PM phases.

• In section 3.1 I have a question because I am not 100% clear if “Iron triangle” and “Square Root” are tools which are used for benchmarking today, or if you are actually suggesting to consider to use these as benchmarking tools if adapted to PM.

• The content of your article in very interesting and you guide your reader, however, you could consider tightening up your writing style a little bit to make the text a little shorter and more precise. E.g. in section two you have a sentence of 54 words.

• I miss the listing of all the references you refer to, but I am sure you have overseen this being under time pressure. Also remember annotations.

Good luck with the completion of your article. Jane

Reviewer 3, lessisv

Overall overview. This is a very interesting topic and the article totally succeeds in presenting it in a very clear and straightforward way to the reader.

Formal aspects. The writing is very clean, and precise vocabulary is used. All figures make sense and are well explained through the text.

Content aspects. The article clearly relates to project management and in fact dedicates a whole section on it "Benchmarking in Project Management". It takes full advantage of the word limit (3000 words) and the content is presented in a very logical way. Excellent use of references throughout the article. I also really liked the detailed Limitations section as it is very important for the reader not only to understand what a method can do, but also when is not advised to use.

Conclusion and advices. All in all a well structured article, giving the reader to understand the topic in a very satisfactory depth. My only advice would be to maybe use bullet points to better illustrate some parts. For example after Figure 3, when talking about the different phases that benchmarking could be applied, it would be cleaner for the reader to have it presented through bullet points. eg.

• Early on benchmarking
• Benchmarking during project execution
• Post-project benchmarking

Reviewer 2, Konstantinos Lymperis, s142330

Good overall image, nice topic and fantastic reference link both inside and outside wiki!

Formal aspects

• Good grammar, not a lot of spelling mistakes. The long sentences, that the others noticed are fixed a lot in this version.
• The quality of some figures is not good (eg figure 3-4) and I could recommend to re-make them (figure 4) since it is simple and it would improve the readability of some key aspects.
• Also I would say that the eight primary competencies could be graphical represented in order to visualize important information.
• Finally, it would be nice to use "italian" when the expression is a directly taken from another document.

Content aspects

• The article is characterized by good cohesion and flow between chapters. It gradually 'zooms in' from general to specific. However, I would recommend the chapter What to benchmark to be more focused on the project management aspects.
• Also someone good argue that there should be and some examples in order to help the reader understand general definitions. For example it could be mentioned as a success story of a benchmarking the development of the computer operational systems 'WINDOWS'.

Answer to reviewers

Dear reviewers, thank you for your valuable comments. They indeed helped me to formulate my article on a better way. I have taken into account more or less everything that you stated in your comments. I enlarged the images, created bullet points for the phases of benchmarking, created need categories giving examples and further analyzing all the points on the What to Benchmark section and presented the competencies in bullet points. If it is possible I would like a final feedback on these changes. Thank you once again and good luck with your articles.

Dimitris