Best Practices or Expired Ideas?

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 Just some thoughts on an interesting twitter thread. 

for most of what we call "best practices", we have little to no evidence they are even effective, much less the "best" way to do something

We call them "best practices" to get people off our backs and leave us alone.

             - Adrian Sanabria 

Confrontationally and controversially said. (So of course, I like him instantly.)

I think a lot of people will miss his main point though. 


We can't use "best practices" as a magical excuse for not thinking about what a situation requires.

I specifically remember an old boss who would pull the phrase out to shut down conversation on subjects he was not willing to learn the complexities of. It was simply "we've always done it this way" with a fresh whitewash layer of "appeal to authority".


@sawaba continues with a call to challenge ourselves:
No important project ever allows the time to truly start from scratch; but it is a good aspiration. "Expiration date" is a good metaphor to be careful about swallowing something that might have gone bad since the last time it was carefully examined.

A standard I've applied before is "I don't trust any decision if I can't remember why it was made."


One final good phrase to bring into the discussion: "Every General who lost a battle was following the best practices from his last fight." The experience we've gained should give us a list of "common practices" to pull from. But it is the full situation that dictates what is actually best. And even proven strategies should be rethought before putting them into action on new battlefields.

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