HDI Benchmarks — Q4 2026

What are the HDI benchmarks?

The HDI benchmarks are aggregated, anonymised figures from completed HDI audits: median scores by layer, typical operational-leak ranges, and the distribution of dependency across process types — published so that a company reading its own result can answer the question "is this normal?". The first benchmark dataset is scheduled for Q1 2027; this page documents the collection rules now, because a benchmark is only worth publishing if its method was fixed before the data arrived.

How are the benchmarks collected?

Every published figure follows three rules. Aggregation: a figure is published only when at least three independent audits stand behind it — no single client is ever inferable. Anonymisation: no company names, and never a combination of industry, size and geography precise enough to identify one. Provenance: benchmark figures come only from auditor-verified Phase 2 results, not from unverified self-assessments — self-reported scores systematically understate dependency (that is the perception gap), and a benchmark built on them would flatter everyone.

What does public research already suggest?

While our own dataset accumulates, external context: industry studies of knowledge work consistently attribute a substantial share of working time to coordination overhead — searching for information, status communication and manual hand-offs — with common estimates in the range of a fifth to a third of the working week. Regulated operations sit at the high end, because verification and documentation multiply hand-offs. Sources and figures are compiled with attribution in the audit report; we deliberately do not restate third-party numbers here as if they were HDI measurements.

What will be published, and when?

From Q1 2027, updated quarterly: median HDI and layer scores by industry pack (starting with cell & gene therapy and conventional pharma), typical operational-leak ranges in hours per month by team-size band, and the most frequent high-dependency process types. Each figure will state the number of audits behind it.

Want to know when the first dataset drops? Take the free screening — your results email is also where benchmark releases are announced — or write to audit@hdi-audit.com with the subject "Benchmarks".