How Best-Practice Research Projects Work
Our collaborative research projects follow a consistent process and methodology. In each research project, organizations participate in one of two roles:
- Sponsoring organizations join the research group to gain new insights, learn best practices, meet with leading organizations, and network with peers. All sponsoring organizations underwrite the cost of research as part of their participation and realize significant cost savings by sharing the project cost with all project sponsors versus conducting a research project alone.
- Best-practice partner organizations are invited to participate after a vetting process to verify their leading practices for that project focus or scope. These organizations share their insights and open themselves to the project group; in return, they are formally recognized for their stellar performance and participate in the research project for no additional fee.
Best-Practice Project Interactive Process
APQC conducts consortium research projects using an approach that provides all participants maximum return on their time and cost investment. Each project adheres to APQC’s Code of Conduct reinforcing to all participants that data and sharing will be ethical, efficient, and effective. Each project consists of key in-person or virual meetings including:
- Kickoff Meeting: Our project participants are actively involved in scoping the research to ensure the research project outcomes meet their needs. Participants gather to discuss the project focus, review APQC's benchmarking methodology, and examine potential best-practice organizations.
- Site Visits: APQC schedules site visits to the selected best-practice partners. Hosts are provided with advance guidelines to ensure a productive and efficient learning experience. Sponsors are encouraged to send a representative so they can learn firsthand how the best practices are applied in a real scenario. All sponsors receive a case study report of each site visit.
- Knowledge Transfer Session (KTS): In a concluding meeting participants discuss key project findings and trends that have emerged. Activities may include presentations by the best-practice organizations, breakout sessions, panel discussions, and informal networking among all project participants.
Documented Final Report
As a sponsor, you receive a copy and license of the final report for your organization to share internally or post on your intranet. This report is a valuable tool for implementing best practices. It describes the key project findings; profiles the best-practice organizations; and for future reference, documents the project background, focus, participants, and benchmarking methodology.
Best-Practice Project Methodology
You will experience APQC’s four-phased methodology. It has been proven successful for decades in the delivery of hundreds of projects and is continually refined based on your feedback. We do the legwork; you learn from the best! The phases include:
- Plan: establish project focus, key measures, and definitions. Our experts refine and finalize the data collection tools and research best-practice organizations for the project. The sponsoring organizations select the final best-practice partners.
- Collect: collect qualitative data and learn from the best. APQC administers a questionnaire to all participants. Participants hear from the best-practice organizations firsthand either via an in-person or a virtual site visit.
- Analyze: document trends and identify key practices. Incorporating your feedback, the project team develops and presents a final report containing key findings and insights at a knowledge transfer session, which concludes the project. You will have the opportunity to discuss the findings with the other participants, as a group, to facilitate additional learning.
- Adapt: incorporate learning and implement improvements. For an additional fee, APQC staff are available to help you create action plans using the project findings that are tailored to your organization’s needs.
For more information on how our research projects work, please contact a Relationship Manager.