The Danger in Following Best Practices

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  raycis04/28/08 Report as spam
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  Best Practices

  True to my experience from one company to another. Best practices are a good guide, but not fool proof advice. Further, I don't think any mid, or senior manager wants to admit that the get paid to be a follower.

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  KBlack0104/30/08 Report as spam
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  RE: The Danger in Following Best Practices

  I would tend to agree with this for the most part. I come from a security background and I have seen this term abused right along with regulatory compliance and standards.
  Some facts:
  (1) Regulatory compliance == minimum necessary to protect the customer not the business
  (2) Standards like PCI DSS == minimum necessary to protect the customer not the business
  (3) Standards and regulations change and need to be assessed as regularly as marketing trends and forces.
  (4) The business has other information which must be protected such as trade secrets, and databases full of sales and marketing trends.
  (5) Business needs and drivers are subject to change
  
  Given this most companies see "Best practices" as the solution to everything. IMHO "best practices" can be seen as either the first stepping stone or the foundation depending upon your metaphoric preference. Any system must be designed to adapt quickly to changing environments. Only following best practices will never provide this however using best practices as a baseline or foundation will enable a sustainable system based upon industry standards thereby allowing for smaller and more frequent changes instead of large expensive changes.