Temporary Best Practice

I can almost feel the reaction to this as I type the words on to the screen. Yes, I believe in Best Practice. Now to go and hide while the replies come storming in. Amongst them will be the concern that BP stifles innovation.

Let me suggest away forward. I would like to suggest that in future instead of BP we refer to TBP.

What is TBP?

TBP stands for Temporary Best Practice.

Let me try to explain how it works.

Imagine you are in a world where you haven’t done anything before. No, lets making it really exciting and suggest that nobody has done it before. Let’s call it edradouring. After you have edradoured for the first time you will have knowledge of how to edradour, it probably wont be perfect but it will be a start. You now have a TBP.

The next time that you are about to edradour, you can review you TBP on edradouring and apply that knowledge. If you chose to share your knowledge of how to edradour, other people could review your TBP and learn from it.

After you have edradoured for the second time, you can include any new knowledge of how to edradour in your TBP.

The essence of TBP is that it is never static, it is never finished, it is always in a state of transition in the cycle of review, apply, update. It never becomes a BP, because it always in a transition from the current version to the next version.

So for all those who don’t like the term Best Practice, how about Temporary Best Practice?


Knoco Ltd