Benchmarking for Best Practices in the Public Sector is a unique, practical guide that shows public officials and administrators at all levels of government how to identify best practices and implement them in their organizations. The authors go beyond abstract concepts to bring benchmarking to life with real cases from federal, state, and local governments.

They show how benchmarking methods have been adapted to the unique needs of the public sector and describe the tangible benefits gained by public agencies that have applied these techniques.

Offering step-by-step advice along with checklists, flowcharts, sample forms, a resource directory, and other tools to help managers take action quickly, the authors demonstrate what benchmarking is and how it differs in the public sector, six criteria for selecting a program or process to be benchmarked, ways to generate support and ideas for a benchmarking project, how to select and work with a benchmarking partner, and how to plan a strategy for using the project's findings.