I have drafted the following checklist that can be used by those interested in applying DEA:

1. What is the decision-making unit to be studied? eg. bank branch, university department, hospital etc.
2. How many of these homogenous units are there?
3. What are the key business drivers (outputs) critical to success of these units?
4. What are the key resources (inputs) that lead to key business drivers?
5. Which of these inputs are controllable by management?
6. Does the organisation collect data on the outputs and inputs in a regular and consistent manner?
7. Is there a particular aspect of the units' productivity you wish to evaluate?
8. Which of the units are reported as inefficient through data envelopment analysis?
9. Do the units reported as inefficient appear to be consistently inefficient over time?
10. Do inefficient units appear as efficient when examined under different methods? If so, establish why.
11. Which unit is the global leader? ie. the best practice unit in the sample.
12. What are the potential improvements for the inefficient units?
13. Which efficient units form the reference set (peer group) for each of the inefficient units?
14. How do the operations of the reference set units compare with that of inefficient units?