Benchmarking industry best practices are the chips you need to stay in the game. You’ve got to learn the skills to do the work. However, benchmarking is anti-creative. It’s a game of follow the leader. Hold on to that rope kids, we don’t want to leave you behind.
Six Sigma is the ultimate “follow me” rope for quality continuous improvement. Lock it down! Put the company on a strident path to meet the quality that the industry demands. Be the quality leader. Yawn.
If your quality isn’t there, without doubt, pick it up. Chase it without taking a breath while simultaneously ignoring your competition. I’m not sure how many examples there are of burgeoning innovation while grasping the rope. I’m guessing: none.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:04 am
“The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds”
Nice.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Nikolas wants to know what it’s footprints in the sand will look like.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I think this depends on how you define creativity. If the process begins with mastering some technical skills and then moving beyond them, then benchmarking (looking at and being inspired by others work) is definitely part of the creative process.
Something is only new in relation to something that already exists. Benchmarking is vital in the creative process. The study of art history, for example, can be seen as benchmarking for the visual arts. Oftentimes we follow the leader until we are ready to lead ourselves.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Very good point Paul. My intention was to point to what you mentioned in your comment: “Something is only new in relation to something that already exists”. So – if that is what we hold as creativivity: it is “creative” only once we move past or deviate from the benchmark. Hence: Benchmarking is not creative.
We can easily get caught up in semantics here. I agree that learning craft is part of the process. (see Passion of the Craft in the Articles section) My basic point was that our own creativity comes from within our own experiences, research, craft, etc. While it is unavoidable to compare ourselves with “state of the art” we are not being particularly creative during that period when we are following best practices or benchmarking our skills against what has already been done.
Great stuff – thanks for the contribution.