Is Best Practice Really Best Practice or Lazy Thinking?

We will identify that we have a change that needs to be made to fulfill a need. That deserves a project with all the costs and bureaucracy that go with it.

We hear a lot about best practice? A way of solving the problem is frequently sold as best practice, wrapped up in a methodology with some project benefits sprinkled liberally through a Powerpoint presentation.

Best practice means most popular practice and is that what is required. Best practice means what other, admired companies have done the way they have done it. Can you confirm that the other company would attack the problem in the same way? Do they always tackle their problems in the same way e.g. get a 3rd party to develop and execute a plan and then blame them for the failure and disruption that is caused when unintended consequences ripple through the organisation.

Best practice is a conservative cop-out. It means that the excuses have already been cooked into the project so that when it all goes wrong everybody can say that it was best practice rather than a customised response to a problem that the company needs to address.

It is not possible to repeat a project plan of more than 1 month and have an identical outcome. Things vary - the level of enthusiasm of a team will reduce to going through the motions and errors will creep in, the technology changes and the business environment. Best practice is taking a snapshot of what most organisations did in similar circumstances with a different team in a different environment and more than one or two years ago. Best practice should be a small ingredient in your recipe but you really need to create something that is appropriate for the occasion.

Do film-makers make the same film over and over gain. No, they improve and they find better ways to do things that may be cheaper and more effective to get their story across. Over time even television series adopt different looks and tell stories a different way. Each project needs to tell its own story to be effective and not to be the poor copy of a failed project that happened a few years ago.

When an organisation is confident and knows what it is doing they will almost have a 'house style' where projects can be done quickly and effectively. Not all projects need to be blockbusters and a series of 'B' movies can effect more change that a large programme that does not get people thinking and behaving differently. Project Managers should read about Roger Corman the famous film maker who still has the enthusiastic energy to make low-cost energetic movies - an idea, some scenes and a few actors rounded up and he would be up and running. He believes that film school ruins film directors and it may be that too much methodology and best practice makes for poor projects that do not deserve to succeed.