As you can see, my blog posts reflect my ongoing internal conversation on these topics!

I like your nomination for the best of best practices (i.e., do the hard work of thinking for yourself). It's guaranteed to work, assuming one's thinking is sound!

- Mary

You already had answered first question in your post Resting on Your Laurels Ruins Best Practices

I am personally against blind following of any best practices in any case in any discipline. I know only one best practice which applies to any of discipline in any case “…actually do the hard work of thinking for yourself..”. I am trying to do my best to follow this best practice every single day.

I believe that best practices should not be followed blindly but rather for should make people think themselves. However I can't say all disciplines as I have experience in some of them only.

Phil

As you can see, my blog posts reflect my ongoing internal conversation on these topics!

I like your nomination for the best of best practices (i.e., do the hard work of thinking for yourself). It's guaranteed to work, assuming one's thinking is sound!

- Mary

You already had answered first question in your post Resting on Your Laurels Ruins Best Practices

I am personally against blind following of any best practices in any case in any discipline. I know only one best practice which applies to any of discipline in any case “…actually do the hard work of thinking for yourself..”. I am trying to do my best to follow this best practice every single day.

I believe that best practices should not be followed blindly but rather for should make people think themselves. However I can't say all disciplines as I have experience in some of them only.

Phil

You raise an intriguing question. Are there ANY best practices in any disciplines that may safely be followed blindly? If not, what's really a best practice?

- Mary

I think that the more constant subject of discipline is the wider context where best practices should be followed scrupulously. Even medicine with the human body as a subject has best practices working in most contexts but from time to time researches proof that the practice should be changed.
For those disciplines which have less constant subject like KM best practices should be more general guidelines than the action plans.

Phil

It's possible that some disciplines (for example, medicine?) actually have best practices that work in most contexts and should be followed scrupulously — at least until research shows that they shouldn't be. However, I wonder if this is the exception rather than the rule? How many other disciplines can make a similar claim?

- Mary

I agree with you that “Best Practice” should not be the rule of how something should be done. I think it is more about what should be done and why it should be done.
It is useful to study best practices in terms of what could be changed and what results could be achieved.

Phil

I like your idea of distilling the core concepts derived from best practices
and then adapting them for our own environments. In that way, we learn from
others, borrow the best from them, but still create a solution that actually
works for us. It's a win-win all around.

- Mary