Best practice
From Free net encyclopedia
The term best practice generally refers to the best possible way of doing something; it is commonly used in the fields of business management, software engineering, and medicine, and increasingly in government.
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Business management
In business management, a best practice is a generally accepted “best way of doing a thing”. A best practice is formulated after the study of specific business or organizational case studies to determine the most broadly effective and efficient means of organizing a system or performing a function. Best practices are disseminated through academic studies, popular business management books and through "comparison of notes" between corporations.
This term was popularized in professional and business management books starting in the late 1980s, most famously In Search Of Excellence, written by business management consultant Tom Peters. As of 2006, it remains a catchphrase among managers.
The idea behind best practices is to create a specification for what the best methodology is for any given situation. Then, one can compare job performance to these best practices and determine if either the job performance was lacking in quality somehow, or if the specification for best practices needs updating to include the job performance being graded.
In practice it is not always this simple. The choice of methodology can be the result of political turf wars, particularly when considering merger and acquisition events, and may not represent the true best practice in a given area - serving merely to justify the retention of a given business unit. This can lead to abandonment of erroneous practices when practical considerations, such as corporate culture or financial impacts become apparent. There is some momentum behind good practice as a preferred term, since it does not imply that no further innovation or revision is required.
The management movement of Best practices might imply that many if not most situations are repeatable and that if we can sufficiently distill a set of experiences, we can predict all or most of the possible scenarios and the way to best handle them. Murphy's law argues against the success of this approach.
Best practice may be a euphemism used in corporate management theory to avoid the negative image involved in "copying a competitor's business model". Businesses "adopt" best practices and by describing a particular innovation as a best practice, they avoid the need to attribute the innovation to a competitor. On the other hand, the advent of best practice may be due to an intellectual movement similar to open source to make business models non-proprietary and thus accelerate competition and innovation.
Information Technology
A range of Best Practices exist within Information Technology (IT), including the IT Infrastructure Library, Information Services Procurement Library (ISPL), the Application Services Library (ASL), Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Rational Unified Process (RUP) and for project management Prince2.
Service Management
The reactive Service Support and pro-active Service Delivery disciplines, together Service Management are the central core of the IT Infrastructure Library and were initially published in the late 1980's. The Service Management Best Practices were consolidated into two formal texts in the 1990's.
Project Management
PRINCE (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) is a project management methodology for the organisation, management and control of projects. It was initially developed in 1989 as a UK Government standard for information technology (IT) project management. PRINCE2 was released in 1996 as a generic project management method. PRINCE2 has become increasingly popular and is now the de facto standard for project management in the UK.
Software Engineering
In software engineering the term is used similarly to business management, meaning a set of guidelines or recommendations for doing something. An example is XML Best Practices, which is a set of guidelines for how to best set up and use XML documents.
Best practices for programming might include using a consistent coding style and documenting code as soon as it is written. Some processes have been developed to enforce these practices; extreme programming is one example.
In computer security, best practices can be described as "extreme paranoia"; for the maximum amount of security possible, users should use keys that are as large as possible and ensure that the physical location of their computer is completely secure, e.g. from TEMPEST attacks (see computer insecurity). It should be noted that such extreme practices are not required for excellent security, and that almost no one actually implements the theoretical best practices.
Medicine
In medicine, best practice refers to a specific treatment for a disease that has been judged optimal after weighing the available outcome evidence. The term began to appear in medical, nursing, and hospital administration literature in the early 1990s, likely borrowed from business management as described above. In its early usage, it was often applied to administrative aspects of hospital and medical practice. However, by the late 1990s, "best practice" became particularly associated with the terminology of evidence-based medicine and is primarily used in that context currently. Several medical journals have adopted it as part of the titles.
Government
In government there is special interest in best practice exchange, as unlike commercial enterprises there is no competitive incentive to keep best practices secret.
The most visible and active exchange efforts focus mostly on public management: e-democracy, e-government and related source code. Some, notably Canada's FCM InfraGuide, focus on very detailed procedures and operational processes required to manage sustainable municipal infrastructure.
See also
- Benchmarking
- Strategic management
- Good Agricultural Practices
- Good Manufacturing Practice
- Good Laboratory Practice
External links
- WikiProcess - A repository of Best Practices of all areas. Lists of step by step guides of proven processes and methods to achieve a goal.
- CyTRAP.eu/RiskIT labs - best practices and IT audits step by step guides & checklists for proven methods regarding instant messaging, outsourcing, information security and e-mail management.
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