What every benchmarking coordinator needs to know

Key documents You’ll receive – Data collection Questionnaire You’ll receive a copy of the questionnaire in excel format. The questionnaire is broken into files – one for each section of the survey. Glossary Many of the key terms used in the questionnaire are defined in the glossary. If you don’t see the definition you are looking for let us know. We can always add one. Data Collection Guide Beyond just definitions, this guide helps you understand the intention behind the questionnaire sections and how to interpret questions. Data Entry Instructions Just what the name implies, these will guide you to using the features of the excel file. The glossary, guide and data entry instructions are available from our website.

Data Steward Each company is assigned a data steward to help ensure data accuracy and timeliness. At the beginning of the year you’ll be told who your steward is and how to reach them. During different points in the data collection process your data steward will reach out to you to: Provide bi-monthly reports showing how much of the survey has been entered on-line Provide you with calculated and raw data trend charts and an interpretation of their meaning (where we find inconsistency in your data) Performance Profiles that show your position related to other participants and your last year’s data. Early in the year you and your data steward need to schedule a few calls as part of the data collection/data steward process where the above mentioned trends and profiles will be reviewed with the appropriate people in your organization.

Key documents You’ll receive – Data Stewarding Draft & Final Reports We publish the draft and final reports in PDF format and post them on our website (links provided later). We provide multiple drafts so that you can review your answers and make changes as necessary. The final report is published when all companies are done editing their data There is a PDF report published for each section of the questionnaire (1 per tab in the excel file). PowerPoint files are available upon request. In these reports, we show how every company performs. You’ll be given a Company ID (that changes every year) that allows you to identify your company on the graphs and charts. Performance Profiles After each draft of the report is published, we publish a performance profile. This document shows the key performance measures and how you compare to others in the community and to last year (if we have historical data) Trend charts Trend charts of calculated data (as seen on the profiles) and of raw data (such as number of customers, calls or outages) are available to ensure consistent reporting from year to year. Also available: Raw data – after your company signs the confidentiality agreement, you can have access to the raw data submitted by the panel

Roles of the Key Players in your organization Who collects data As coordinator, you’ll assign sections of the questionnaire or individual questions to people to gather the data. Keep track of who you assigned each question or section to, so that you can go back to them to follow-up Ideally, keep track of where they got the answers they submitted Each year when we renumber the questionnaire, we put last year’s question number next to the question so you can relate last year’s answers to this year’s answers. Who submits data Some companies like to have the coordinator or their assistant enter all of the data into the Novi software. This gives them quality and completion control of the answers Other companies like to have the individuals who are responsible for gathering the data submit it directly into Novi. This relieves the coordinator of some effort, but does require them to keep track of whether data is submitted and is accurate Complete data entry instructions are included in a separate document available from our website.

Key documents You’ll receive – Data Stewarding Draft & Final Reports We publish the draft and final reports in PDF format and post them on our website (links provided later). We provide multiple drafts so that you can review your answers and make changes as necessary. The final report is published when all companies are done editing their data There is a PDF report published for each section of the questionnaire (1 per tab in the excel file). PowerPoint files are available upon request. In these reports, we show how every company performs. You’ll be given a Company ID (that changes every year) that allows you to identify your company on the graphs and charts. Performance Profiles After each draft of the report is published, we publish a performance profile. This document shows the key performance measures and how you compare to others in the community and to last year (if we have historical data) Trend charts Trend charts of calculated data (as seen on the profiles) and of raw data (such as number of customers, calls or outages) are available to ensure consistent reporting from year to year. Also available: Raw data – after your company signs the confidentiality agreement, you can have access to the raw data submitted by the panel

Using the Reporting tool to your advantage We give users access to the report tool. The normal user isn’t going to be interested in using this. It isn’t designed for the average user. From the reporting tool, you can do the following: Build your own graphs Create a panel of companies to compare against Build your own reports (groups of graphs) Export data to Excel For training and access contact Debi McLain Cook

Schedule – Overview of activities - Webinars You can download the complete schedule from our website. See the links to the schedules under the table showing the meetings. Data Collection Webinars These webinars are held about 1 week after the questionnaire is distributed. There is one for just about every section of the questionnaire They are intended to help data gatherers (not just coordinators) understand what is intended by the questions and how to answer them. Data Review Webinars This series of webinars is held immediately after a report is distributed Ideally, these webinars give you an opportunity to review the report page by page with 1QC and understand any data issues Minutes from these webinars and a listing of outliers and data issues is distributed about 1 week after the webinars Discussion Topic Webinars These are a series of webinars where subject matter experts get together to discuss this year’s discussion topics. Follow the link for more info.

Discussion Topics As your company’s coordinator, one of the roles you’ll need to play is to invite your subject matter experts (SMEs) to participate in the Discussion Topic Webinars. Discussion topics are areas that are chosen each year for an in depth review of practices. Over a series of webinars each company’s SMEs come together to share their practices and knowledge in this area. Prior to each webinar 1QC prepares a series of interview questions that companies review in expectation of being able to answer them during the call. We then discuss as a group each of the interview questions and the answers provided by the SMEs. After the webinars, 1QC prepares a summary. We present the findings at the Data Review Conference and have companies that are doing something special in this area give a presentation at the Insights Conference.

What to expect at a Conference We run paperless meetings. Paper copies of documents are not handed out. We distribute meeting materials via flash drives and through our website. You are welcome to bring your laptop to our meetings, in fact, we encourage it. You can follow along on your computer and you can stay in touch with work. If you aren't familiar with the computer you're bringing, make sure you have instructions for connecting a wireless network in the hotel we're staying at. Almost all meetings are offered via webinar. To register visit https://1qconsulting.webex.com. Most webinars are recorded, so that if you can't attend live, you can listen to the recording later. Dress code is business casual, appropriate to the location and the outings we might take for dinner and extracurricular activities.

Schedule – Overview of activities – Individual Meetings Kick-off Meeting Each company can receive a kick-off meeting shortly after the questionnaire is distributed. The kick-off meeting is intended to get your data gatherers together to understand what is expected of them and what resources are available We’ll give some guidance on how to answer questions and tailor the answers to your company’s specific issues On-site Presentation Leaders in the community receive an on-site presentation at the end of the program year that focuses on opportunities for improvement and shows overall strengths and weaknesses compared to the panel Leadership Alignment Workshop Once your company knows what opportunities for improvement exist, we can help get the key players in alignment in how to best to tackle the changes that need to take place.