"The new year is always a good time to take stock. You might be committing to keeping a better eye on your pounds (both the £ and lb variety), trying your hand at something new or promising to behave better at the next Christmas party. Whatever your goals, you need to know where you're starting from before you can compare to the 'new you'. Yes, unfortunately that means getting on the 'scales of sadness' for some of us and being accountable as we aim for self improvement. I am no exception to this, and I've started January with some new tools for personal benchmarking.

I'm Rick Law: I've worked in NHS primary care IT projects for the last decade (wow, typing that out certainly made me think about the inexorable march of time). I've recently started a secondment in the NECS Capacity Tracker team as a regional delivery manager and I'm looking forward to presenting at the conference about benchmarking your business, and how it might relate to those new years resolutions."