How to Save the World blogger Dave Pollard had an excellent post a few days ago called, "12 Tools That Will Soon Go the Way of Fax and CDs." It is a list of legacy technologies and practices that Pollard believes will disappear with the next generation, and so-called "best practices" are #3 on the list. Dave writes:

It's natural that people want to hear what the leading companies and individuals in any area of business endeavour are doing, but the sad truth is that most "best practices" are so devoid of context, of the knowledge and history that explains why they are so effective, that they essentially become unactionable. Show, don't tell, and discuss, don't proclaim, are the information behaviours of the future. Less efficient, perhaps (stories take a while to tell, and voice is harder to browse through for fast learning), but much more effective.

I am rooting hard for Dave to be right. As regular readers of the P.I. Blog already know, I long ago consigned the idea of best practices to File 13. Every so often, another blogger will push back against my hard line view, but basically I think I'm on the side of the angels on this one. For all of the good intentions that accompany best practices in concept, I believe the focus on them has diminished our organizations by building a dependence on faint copies of what has worked for others as the basis for serving our stakeholders. We have not challenged ourselves enough to author the original idea or discover the truly creative solution, and now when innovation really matters to our success, we're totally unprepared to make it happen. We must correct this shortcoming right now. Fortunately, we still have time.

Go read the rest of Dave's post to see if you agree with the other items on his list. It's a good one!

(Hat tip to Stephen Abram for pointing to this post on his blog.)