My thoughts below are from a tweet I shared in response to Shane Parrish making a tweet (he deleted it) about best practices. At the bottom right of this post is a product leadership coach tweet containing an article describing some of the risks of assuming a best practice without context-driven modifications will work for an organization.
If one is copying a best practice without fully understanding the what and why of the best practice’s key components he/she may not be utilizing critical thinking in the endeavor at hand. A lack of critical thinking may negatively impact one’s ability to achieve their desired goals.
Multiple definitions of critical thinking exist but in this context, I’d say critical thinking = being conscious of assumptions one is making decisions from; actively challenging assumptions that one doesn’t understand or disagrees with. The absence of critical thinking may lead to decisions based on incorrect assumptions, a typically undesired phenomenon.
It can also be helpful to remember that a best practice is usually the work of another human so it’s not infallible or immune to enhancement.
Someone responded to my tweets (bottom left tweet) and suggested that “industry standards” can’t be ignored to which I responded:
