My BS radar goes off when conversations turn to standards and best practices. I find James Bach’s argument quite convincing especially his point about industry best practices:
- “This practice represents a consensus among industry leaders.” No it doesn’t. You’re just making that up. Industry leaders aren’t able to agree on anything much of substance. I know this because I am an industry leader (based on the fact that some people have said so), and other leaders more often disagree with me instead of obeying my commands. I am influential within a certain clique. The software testing industry is made up of many such tiny cliques, each with its own terminology and values. </ul> </blockquote>
Standards are far too often used as hammers to enforce an individual’s ideas. They can quickly stifle creativity and lead to ludicrous decisions like using EJB’s for every project because that’s the industry best practice we’re following.
In Peopleware the alternate recommendation is to tend towards a “gently guided convergence” over hammering people with declared best practices. There ideas are:
- Training: People do what they know how to do. If you given them all a common core of methods, they will tend to use those methods.
- Tools: A few automated aids for modeling, design, implementation, and test will get you more convergence of method then all the statutes you can pass.
- Peer Review: In organizations where there are active peer review mechanisms (quality circles, walkthroughs, inspections, technology fairs), there is a natural tendency toward convergence.
— pg. 118 Peopleware 2nd Edition
Not a bad set of ideas, even if I’m not sure what a quality circle is.