Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine’s Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.
Have you ever been in a meeting discussing the best way to get something accomplished and have someone claim that their approach is considered an industry “best practice”? Have you ever wondered why no one ever challenges the claim as to how that “best practice” was determined, or by whom? I am guessing the answers to these questions are “yes” to the first and “no” to the second.
Just what makes any practice or process a “best practice”? Who establishes it? What are the criteria used to determine that any practice is actually the best? To answer these questions, it’s usually “best” to begin with definitions. Consider the following three:
- “A method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to any alternatives because it produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing things.” (Wikipedia)
- “A technique or methodology that, through experience and research, has proven to reliably lead to a desired result.” (TechTarget)
- “A procedure that has been shown by research and experience to produce optimal results and that is established or proposed as a standard suitable for widespread adoption.” (Merriam-Webster)
Based on the above definitions, a number of criteria could be
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Published at Thu, 15 Feb 2018 05:00:00 +0000
