What could possibly be wrong with best practices? After all, a best practice is a method or technique that has a proven record of showing superior results. Still, the idea of best practices has been getting a lot of negative press.
The problem is that organizations often waste time and effort by applying best practices without tailoring them to their own unique circumstances. As this Harvard Business Review post explains, “it is rare that a practice developed in one place can be applied elsewhere without significant customization.”
It seems foolhardy to assume that what worked at some earlier time will continue to work now even though times have changed, or that what worked elsewhere will work for you even though your environment, culture, needs, and so on are different.
Still, the web is filled with links to best practices information for everything from outsourcing to hiring to requirements analysis and more. And a search on Amazon for “best practices” yields hits for everything from customer service best practices to midwifery and occupational therapy best practices. Clearly, there’s a perception that best practices are the way to go.
And really, it’s hard to find fault with some best practices, such as this one about establishing clear objectives. It’s in an article on best practices for outsourcing, but establishing clear objectives is relevant to most endeavors. As this article notes: “It's not that the best-laid plans oft times go astray; it's that they often aren't the best-laid plans in the first place.” Who would dispute that?
Then there’s this advice for project management best practices: Review the workplan on a regular basis to determine how you are progressing in terms of schedule and budget. Good advice, surely.
So should you use best practices? Yes and no. There’s no point starting your next project from scratch as if there isn’t already a vast body of knowledge from which to draw. So, don’t blithely ignore best practices that you may come across. At the same time, don’t expect any set of best practices to exactly fit your organization, project, methodology, and team.
A useful exercise is to look at a set of best practices and ask questions. What’s relevant here? What can we apply? What should we modify if we want it to work in this context or project? What doesn’t fit and is best ignored? What can we learn from these best practices that will give us the best odds of succeeding?
Then let your experience guide you in developing your own set of best practices.
