The danger of best practices is that one can become too dependent on the processes. This could cause the organization to miss things simply because they have too much confidence in the system. Relying on best practices too much can mean taking away from the value of the human factor. Human observation is the best prevention that a company can have. It cannot be replaced by a system of set of rules. This is a common pitfall that lies behind many project failures, even in the presence of an excellent set of best practices for the completion of the project.
As one can see, there are both positive and negative aspects to "best practices" in many organizations. From one standpoint, best practices assures that the project will proceed in an orderly fashion. From the other, it is easy to rely too much on best practices and too little on the talent within the organization. In the final analysis, it appears that one must be careful how one applies best practices and how they relate best practices to the situation at hand.
Best practices give some level of assurance that a certain level of quality is achieved. They can contain benchmarks and performance measures against which to gauge the progress and success of the project (State of Arkansas, 2003). However, they should never be so rigid as to be considered policy (State of Arkansas, 2003). Best practices are an effective tool as long as they are treated as just that, a tool. Best practices should not dictate the "rules" of the project (Visitacion, 2003). They should serve as a guideline to help the project proceed in an organized manner. Best practices are useful, but only if one treats them as guideline and not the sole governing set of standards on a project.
Best practices that are flexible and written in such as way that they can be interpreted as needed are the most effective and produce the best results (Visitacion, 2003). However, one must be cautioned not to allow them to become too vague either. They must be concrete enough to be actionable, but not inflexible....
The most important thing to remember about best practices is that they are not the focus of the project: The project is the focus of the best practices. Too many times the focus tends to drift away from the project toward the "best practices" and the adherence to them (Visitacion, 2003). Focusing too much on the process and not on the project can jeopardize the final project outcome.
Best practices are an excellent tool for the implementation of and it project, but only it they are kept in perspective. Even the most well written best practices cannot assure the success of the project. The team must stay focused on the reason behind the project and the project goals in order to achieve the best results.
There are many "templates" available for the adoption of best practices (Kay, 2002). These can provide a starting point, but are most likely to lead to disaster, as they do not reflect the true goals and environment of the organization. Best practices are an effective tool when they are developed with the specifics of the organization in mind. However, they cannot replace the talent of the organization. There are simply some things that they cannot do, and one must keep in mind that policies and procedures do not make up an organization, it is made of the people within it.
Works Cited
Kay, R. (2002). System Development Life Cycle. Computerworld. March 14, 2002. Retrieved March 22, 2007 from www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/story/0,10801,71151,00.html
State of Arkansas. (2003) Best Practices for Managing State Information Technology Projects.
September 1, 2003. Office of Information Technology. Document Number: BP33-001.
Retrieved March 22, 2007 from www.techarch.state.ar.us/domains/business_process/best_practices/BP-33-001_Proj_Mgmt.pdf
Visitacion, M. (2003). Project Management Best Practices: Key Processes and Common Sense.
Giga Information Group, Inc. January 30, 2003 Retrieved March 22, 2007 at http://www.gigaweb.com.
