In today’s journey of design departments to become more effective and efficient more and more existing management models are used and copied to design: One of those being ‘best practice’.
A best practice is a technique, method, process, approach, activity or tool that is believed to be more effective and efficient at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance (wikipedia).
We see that many design departments are currently looking for best practices in design and design management, either by capturing current internal practices or by using external ones.
The intention of capturing current practices to manage knowledge and guide your designers and design managers is great and very valuable. Also looking for external inspiration can offer benefits. My question is if this should be called ‘best practice’…
First of all: A practice is only a best practice when it describes a practice whose success is based on evidence (shown superior results). A best practice is selected by systematic process and successfully demonstrated. A best practice can only act as a best practice in the specific situation/context it is tested for. A great example is the application of best practices in the design department of Johnson Controls.
However, what I see is that many design departments ‘just’ capture practices in a generic way to act as guidance for designers to do their job. No rigorous qualitative and quantitative evaluation is done of the described practice compared to other practices. The application of those generically described practices is open per situation and depending on the skills of the user of the practice.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe this to be a great idea and fitting the qualities of designers. My only worry is that using the terminology ‘best practice’ in this situation just pretends excellence where it doesn’t exist. By still using the phrase ‘best practice’ – without the analysis behind it – you communicate rigidness and therefore miss the opportunity to stimulate your designers and design managers to explore and try-out new solutions to build on and improve current practice.
‘Design practice, design management practice, our practice’ are all great names to replace ‘best practice’ in design. Or would you have another suggestion?
Tags: benchmark, best practice, definition, good pracitce
