Best Practices... ?

For who? When? Why? What project/product/process? Where is it best? How is it best?

Something happens to me when I hear those words...

If the goal is to achieve best practices and incorporate them across the board
within an organization, doesn't that stifle creativity? Doesn't that place the process over the people?

Innovation: Is there such a thing as 'best practice?', a blog post written by Derek Chesire sums up simply the belief that folks looking for best practices are believing there is "one true way".

To me, chasing after best practices removes the creativity, process improvement options, innovation, and artistry that people can contribute to what it is they are doing.


If there are three children in the family, they are three separate individuals, even if they come from the same two parents. If you have raised any children, you will know that no two of them are the same. The same practice of the simplest things, such as the bedtime routine, will not apply to all three children. Looking back in history, doctors used to send new mothers home with instructions on how to "schedule" the feedings, nap times, etc. of newborn children. I wonder how many mothers ripped the instructions to shreds while questioning what they were doing wrong before they caused the hospitals to stop sending them home with these "best practices" for taking care of newborns.

Add to this thought the studies that have been done on birth order, the differences of gender, cognitive differences, health differences, size differences, etc. The revolution in thought brought about by Dr. Spock, who helped teach parents to value their children as individuals. It is impossible to have a "best practice" that applies to all three children, or even to two for that matter. Parenting children is the epitome of agile development.

There are, undoubtedly, somethings sometimes that need to be done in a standardized way to provide what some stakeholders want or think they want, but we should always be on the lookout for better ways of doing things...

If practicing something can help you become an expert at it, that implies that things have the option, the need, to change/flow/grow. To me, the "best practice" is the one that works today and looks to change/flow/grow for tomorrow. To me that embraces the "practice" in "best practices".

Fishing Lessons...

Matt Heusser recently wrote an article for Sticky Minds titled The Fishing Maturity Model. This article made me think about what I have learned in the near-a-year that I have been learning how to fish...

My first time was at a river with a casting rod and reel that belong to my Teacher. I spent most of the time watching him fly fish down the river from where I was. I had no idea what I was doing at all. I did catch one fish, which I had to release due to the size of it, and that made me feel excited about the whole thing.

The open water season closed right on the heels of that experience, but my Teacher invited me to go ice fishing. In all my years I never thought that I would stand on the ice in the middle of a lake and fish through a hole that was drilled through it. (One good thing about ignorance is that I did not realize how thin the ice was when I first ventured out on it... It started out about 4 inches thick and by the end of the season it was close to three feet thick!)

At first there were no rules to follow other than what the governing forces have in place (conservation, size, limits, etc.). During this time my Teacher let me have fun. Then it was time to learn.... and learn by watching and asking questions. I am curious by nature, so I tried lots of tactics... none of them rewarded me with a fish... I was bankrupt with catching any for quite some time. What changed? Me.

I liked the challenge of catching a fish, and the joy of actually pulling a fish through the hole, not to mention the satisfaction of finding wonderful recipes to cook it and finally eat it :) So I became patient and persistent, and by end of season I may not have caught as many as my Teacher, but I caught enough to be happy with the outcome and to be content to understand I was learning from someone who had fished for many, many moons... an expert.

When open water season began again this year, I took my six year old daughter fishing with me several times alone. (I should call it practicing casting because I caught nothing.) The joy of sharing this time with her surpassed what any that catching a fish would do for me. Her and her Barbie fishing gear which contains no hook yet, but a butterfly practice "thingy" on the end of it, she can cast with the best of them and is so proud of how far her butterfly goes. She learns about nature, biology, science, life... all while being in the quiet surroundings of the water and woods. It is beyond words to describe how special it is to spend that time with her apart from technology and the noise of this world...

But, for the subject I am trying to tie together here... I went with my Teacher on a fishing trip to a couple of brooks recently... Because I already learned to listen and watch (and because good teachers sometimes just give you a really good tip), I caught a couple fish. Some of them were too small to keep and had to be released, but the knowledge I gained and the experience I had catching them, was priceless.

How does this tie into Matt's article? I went to several web sites and so called "experts" to learn about fishing and learned that I wasted time and money on things that did not produce the "expected results". Finding a Teacher, a Mentor, an Expert... is priceless. And the funny thing about these people is that most of them never actually feel like they have attained what they think an expert is, but they seek to achieve it constantly. They share knowledge of what they do and if you are "listening" to them, you will hear the secrets of their success.

I have had exposure to such people in my years testing as well. People from all over the world who have had advice/tips/thoughts/philosophies on testing and on life that have affected me or made me think differently or given me ideas or inspired me in some way, shape, or form... and I am thankful for all they have shared.

I blog for myself... It is a way for me to express things that I think/feel/believe. My blog title speaks volumes to who I am as a person... Losing Focus is a wonderful thing because it gives you a new perspective on everday things, helps you to "see" things outside of the box...

It was suggested to me to start a blog roll by a tester I admire and have learned from. This blog is dedicated to him and the testers that have taught me much. Because like my Teacher, they have exposed me to some very valuable lessons and they are the beginning of my blog roll... with thanks:)

Self Evaluation...

Every week I take my trash out to the curb in two 34-gallon, wheeled and covered, trash cans. It takes me a few minutes to get them down the sloped drive, so I usually put them out the night before so I am not rushing around the next morning. More often than not in the morning, I end up seeing the sanitation man come to dispose of my trash. (This is likely due to the noise of the truck when it backs up.)

After taking the trash out of the cans, he always places the covers neatly back on the containers and puts them back in line. This behavior is admirable. In all the years that I have had sanitation pick up services, no other person has been so tidy with my cans. At the least, the lids would be put inside the cans. At the worst, the cans would be tossed back to where they originally stood.

In the winter up here in Northern Maine, we generally get about 116 inches of snow. The city has people that are paid to plow the roads when the storms come. The experiences I have had with the man who generally plows my road have been anything but pleasant for the two winters that I have lived in this home.

The first year went something like this… I would get up really early in the morning, head out and shovel out my drive… yep, shovel. At the end of the drive, I would push the snow pretty far out to both sides so that I would be least likely to end up with that great big mound of snow that can come from the plow when it passes by. However, when the plow man would come he would make two passes by my drive – on the same side of the road - from both directions. I would see him do this from my window just about every time he plowed.

The result was generally a 3 foot high by 4 foot wide barrier between me and the road. I would have to suit back up and shovel the heavy stuff he left me back to the sides so I could exit the drive in my car. Four storms later, I reported him. The two swipes went to one, but he still caused me to have to redo all the work I had done.

The second year was not as bad for two reasons. The first reason was we had a lot less snow storms. The second was that a friend of mine let me use an extra snow thrower he had on hand. But this plow man still managed to show some poor ethics. My six year old daughter watched as he plowed over my trash cans one morning, knocking the lid off one can and causing the trash bags to tumble out. He did not rectify the situation but continued on his way.

So what’s the deal with these two stories? I have thought about a few things when watching these two completely different men provide their services.

I thought about the differences in their employment. The plow man has a city job. Generally speaking, city workers have pretty decent benefits and pay. The trash man is self employed and in competition with at least two other companies who provide the same service. Again, generally speaking, self employed, small business people have a much harder time financially. They have the stress of keeping their business alive on top of providing services.

Another thing that comes to mind… The plow man knows how I feel about him because I had placed a call to his supervisor. The trash man, however, has no idea how I feel about him. Others do, however. He has been a story I tell about ethics and service oriented work for the last year, to several people, including my children. I admire him for his simple, honest display of ethics and service.

Evaluation of other service oriented employees is pointless if I don’t apply the same rules of engagement to myself. How do I ensure that I am doing my best to serve my co-workers, customers, organization, family, friends, and myself? How do I check to see whether I am being viewed more like the plow man or the trash man? How do I figure out what I need to change/improve? What parts do I have the power to change/improve?

At the organization I work for, we are required to do annual self-evaluations. We have key competencies that we rate ourselves along with how well we achieved our goals that were set the previous year. Some people may look at this time of year with dread because it is something they really don’t like to do or they somehow do not feel all that comfortable evaluating themselves. Personally, this is something I do on an ongoing basis throughout the year. In order to improve any aspect of myself, I have to start with an honest look at where I am now. That helps me to determine if I need to up my skill set, change my communication style, improve processes that I use, eliminate wasted time, organize things, etc. This is something that is beneficial on a personal as well as professional front.

Testers have a tendency to be “evaluators” by nature. Always questioning what they might be missing in coverage or what the product/application/system might be missing. This same evaluation, when applied to self, helps me to see where I was, where I am, and where I am going by helping me to set goals of what I would like to achieve/change/improve/etc.

*An added bonus of personal self-evaluation throughout the year: filling out the annual self-evaluation at work only takes me 10 minutes… :)