best practice

The term "best practice" refers to those practices that have produced outstanding results in another situation and that could be adapted for our situation.

Last updated: September 26, 2004.

Type: Private
On the web: http://www3.best-in-class.com
Employees: 25

Best Practices lets its clients know how they stack up against the very best. The management consulting firm specializes in best practices benchmarking, in which companies can see how their own business processes compare to the "best practices" of industry-leading companies. The company provides customized research and consulting services; it also sells access to its business intelligence databases and has other membership-based services. Best Practices was founded in 1992 by CEO Christopher Bogan and serves companies in the financial services, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, technology, and telecommunications industries. Its clients include GlaxoSmithKline, PSEG, and AstraZeneca.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2008:
Sales: $5.0M

Officers:
President and CEO: Consulting

Competitors:
A.T. Kearney
Corporate Executive Board
Towers Perrin

Formulas and procedures that have proven successful in practice. In the IT world, best practices often refers to software development methodologies. See XP, RUP and Scrum.

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Successful standard operating procedures for a given business type. Consultants observe and evaluate various firms and gather information on what works. They then offer their conclusions on the best practices for the given industry to another client.

The process of searching for new and better procedures by comparing your own procedures to that of the very best. The objective is to measure the key outputs of a business process or function against the best and to analyze the reasons for the performance difference. Benchmarking applies to services and practices as well as to products and is an ongoing systematic process. It entails both quantitative and qualitative measurements that allow both an internal and an external assessment. Process benchmarking is the process of assessing the quality of key internal processes by comparing them with those of other firms. In results benchmarking, a firm examines the end product or service of another company, focusing on product/service specifications and performance results.

Service and manufacturing firms often evaluate their performance in relation to the performance of industry competitors. The term "benchmarking" is often used to describe this process of comparing practices or strategies to other companies. The benchmarking process sometimes helps a firm find documented strategies and tactics employed by highly admired companies. Such practices are often referred to as "best practices."

According to the consulting firm Best Practices LLC, companies exhibiting a best practice may not be best-in-class in every area. But due to industry forces or the firm's goal of excellence, practices have been implemented and developed that have brought the firm recognition in a certain area. Typically the best practices result in a higher profit for the firm, and these more competitive business practices ensure a firm's survival or limit entry by new competitors.

Identifying Best Practices

Some firms are so well known for best practices in certain areas that it is not necessary to consult books, magazines, libraries, or the Internet to find the information. For example, Federal Express is often cited as having best practices among competitors in the expedited small package industry for their on-time delivery and package tracking services. Microsoft, the computer software developer, is cited as being innovative and creative, while the L.L. Bean outdoor products and clothing company is frequently lauded for their customer service practices and return policy guarantees.

When a firm is benchmarking to learn about the best practices of others, often these superior methods are found in companies outside the firm's key industry segment. Thus it is important to research and observe companies in a wide variety of settings, countries, industries, and even in the not-for-profit arena to learn better ways to continuously improve.

Information on best practices and innovative technologies can also be found on the Best Manufacturing Practices (BMP) web site. This site has as its goal to increase the quality, reliability, and maintainability of goods produced by American firms. One way BMP accomplishes this goal is to identify best practices, document them, and share the information across industry segments. They believe that by sharing best practices, they allow companies to learn from others'attempts and to avoid costly and time-consuming duplication of efforts. Companies profiled have submitted abstracts of what their organization does well and they include previous practices, changes to new processes, and information on implementation as well as quantitative details and lessons learned.

Learning from Award Winners

Other ways to identify best practices include observing businesses as a consumer or a mystery shopper. It is also possible to identify best practices by examining professional journals and business periodicals. Companies that win various awards often exhibit best practices to emulate. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners are a good group of companies to benchmark for best practices. They have met the rigorous award criteria and have had success that allowed them to win this prestigious award. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is given to U.S. organizations that have shown achievements and improvements in seven areas: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and business results.

Winners of this national quality award have documented practices in the areas of quality and productivity as well as increased profits. The award highlights best practices by recognizing the achievements of those companies that improve the quality of their goods and services. Whether companies apply for the award or not, the criteria can be used by business, industrial, governmental, and other organizations in evaluating their own quality improvement efforts.

Industry Week, a publication aimed at manufacturers, has since 1990 set out to find and share stories of America's best plants. They later extended their coverage to include Europe's best plants. They have set out to define the best practices of world-class competition and highlight quality approaches, lean manufacturing, and employee empowerment. The publication stresses the fact that these practices can be implemented in a wide range of industries to improve competitiveness and productivity.

Learning about the best practices of others is a valuable way for firms to gather fresh insights into possible methods of improving a myriad of aspects of their operations. It should be an important part of an organization's strategic planning activities.

Further Reading:

Panchak, Patricia. "The Never-Ending Search for Excellence." Industry Week. October 16, 2000.

Patton, Susannah. "By the Numbers." CIO. October 1, 2000.

See also: Benchmarking

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2009)

A Best practice is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer problems and unforeseen complications. Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people.

A given best practice is only applicable to particular condition or circumstance and may have to be modified or adapted for similar circumstances. In addition, a "best" practice can evolve to become better as improvements are discovered.^[1]

Despite the need to improve on processes as times change and things evolve, best-practice is considered by some as a business buzzword used to describe the process of developing and following a standard way of doing things that multiple organizations can use for management, policy, and especially software systems.

As the term has become more popular, some organizations have begun using the term "best practices" to refer to what are in fact merely 'rules', causing a linguistic drift in which a new term such as "good ideas" is needed to refer to what would previously have been called "best practices."

Contents 1 Exchange 2 Best practices domains 3 Good operating practice 4 See also 5 References

Exchange

Best practices in a particular industry or other professional field can be exchanged, just like any instructional capital, by any means, though Internet-related information is most commonly exchanged this way:

• source code
• e-democracy
• e-government

Best practices domains

Domains where Best Practices have been applied include:

• Teaching/Education
• Incremental and iterative development
• Quality assurance
• Performance engineering
• Risk management
• Change process
• Change Management
• Release execution
• Milestones
• Release control
• Defect tracking
• Use case
• Requirements management
• Automated testing process
• Nursing
• Evidence-based medicine
• Physical planning and land use management
• Water pollution control, watershed protection and restoration
• Local governance
• Home care

Best practices are used in technology development, such as new software, but also in construction, transportation, business management^[2]., sustainable development, and various aspects of project management. Best practices are also used in healthcare to deliver high quality care that promotes best outcomes.

Best practices are used within any business type including, but not limited to: sales, manufacturing, teaching, programming software, road construction, health care, insurance, and accounting.

Documenting and charting these procedures and practices is a complicated and time-consuming process often skipped by companies, even though they may practice the proper processes consistently.

Some consulting firms specialize in the area of Best Practice. Often "best practice" consulting firms offer pre-made 'templates' to standardize business process documentation. A key strategic talent is required to provide good "best practice" consulting to organisations: the ability to balance the uniqueness of an organisation with practices it has in common with other organisations.

In many cases the cost of making modifications to a system or process which comes standard in a template or with a delivered computer application forces an organisation into using "best practice". Often it is to the benefit of the organisation. Sometimes a "best practice" will hurt an organisation. Good "best practice" consulting firms can assist organisations in making decisions appropriate for the organisation.

Good operating practice

Good operating practice is a strategic management term. More specific uses of the term include good agricultural practices, good manufacturing practice, good laboratory practice, good clinical practice and good distribution practice.

Because of the use of best-practice as a buzzword, some people are asking if a better term could be found. This could be something such as “better practices”, or “current thinking”.

The thinking is along these lines. The term “best practices” has implications of finality, obedience, authority, and universality. The term ‘best practices’ implies that some source has the final answer to a matter in dispute or disarray. The matter is closed, decided, set and resolved. The term "better practices" seems to seek better ways, which may even lead to tweaking the suggested practice to make it even better. It suggests that all of us together can come up with something better than any one of us can arrive at individually, and places authority in the community. The term may imply that the better practice is not universal, but depends on the specific situation.

See also

• Benchmarking
• Best coding practices
• Best practice exchange
• Best available technology
• Business rule
• GxP
• Standard of Good Practice
• Strategic management
• Project management

References

1. ^ "Best Practice Definition". BusinessDictionary.com. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/best-practice.html. Retrieved 2009-11-04. 
2. ^ “GROWTH MANAGEMENT. Experiences of successful companies in Central Europe”

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