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© 2002 The Performance Institute
Benchmarks and Comparisons
•Baselines
–Trend Analysis
•Types of Measures:
–Leading
–Lagging
–Current
•Benchmarking your performance
Although there are few perfect measures, there are still several different types at your disposal.  This slide depicts a variety of measures.
The baseline approach is very straightforward.  Today’s performance provides your baseline.  If your agency is effectively serving 800 clients on a monthly basis, your monthly caseload should only go up from there.
Then there are leading, lagging, and current measures.  In the economic realm, you have leading indicators like the interest rate.  Lagging indicators, which by definition lag behind market action, include the average duration of unemployment.  And a current indicator is the GDP.
Benchmarking entails finding comparable programs against which you can measure the performance of your agency’s programs.  The results produced by a comparable welfare-to-work program shed light on the successes or failures of your own welfare-to-work program.