Best Practices

Level 3 is about the implementation of strategy, which implies change. Anytime you make a change in what you do, best practices need to be considered. Best practices are important because they provide a set of guidelines for how best to do something and they keep teams from reinventing the wheel. Best practices are a collection of learnings from people who have done it right and done it wrong. It does not matter what you are doing, you can be assured that there are best practices for it. Governance, social policy, maintenance, healthcare, product design, marketing, eCommerce, supply chain, procurement, and strategy, all have best practices.

Every one of the twenty-nine elements in this book have best practices. If you Google “Best Practices” for one of these topics, you will find hundreds of examples. This suggests that effective benchmarking for a best practice, and its evaluation, requires minimal research. Unlike thirty years ago, that research does not have to be exhaustive, or cost money, given today’s tools.

The sad part of this section is that despite having this information readily available, I seldom hear anyone ask, “What is the best practice?” when we are talking about redesigning business processes, products, or management approaches. That is a shame. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the Business Hierarchy of Needs? is a best practice for developing and implementing strategy, but as with anything, it is up to you and your team to decide the truth of that statement. The Business Hierarchy of Needs? suggests the following best practices:

1. Engagement at all levels.

2. Having a Most Important Goal.

3. Clearly defined and communicated strategies.

4. Performance management tied to cascaded measures for every stakeholder.

5. Alignment and agreement on objectives and accountability.

6. Bridging the gap between strategy and results throughout the organization.

7. Technology driving business processes.

As mentioned earlier, there is another treasure trove of best practices that are a bit hidden, but nonetheless just as important. Business software is designed through the digitization and application of thousands of best practices that have been gleaned from users. Software provides the basis for defining how things should be done, which is why I recommend building your business processes around your technology backbone. The previous section talked about many ways for using software to implement best practices and I have found that software companies are eager to share the best practices that are embedded in their applications. If you want best practices for MRP, CRM, PLM, scheduling, finance, or other critical business functions, talk to a software provider. One of the activities we do in all technology related projects is to call in the current software providers, ask them about the best practices they see in similar industries, and find out how to better use installed software. This activity should be a core part of a Continuous Improvement program.

One of our clients had purchased an ERP system and was eight revisions behind. We brought in the vendor and did a full review of changes and new features and found that they could significantly improve the utilization of that software, as well as modify some business processes and realize hefty productivity improvements. If you get nothing else out of this book, you will realize great benefits by just asking your team what the best practice is when discussing making changes to the way you do things.

After reading this section, you should be thinking about:

1. Do we apply best practices inside our business?

2. Do we ever ask what the best practice is for a change we are making?

3. Have we leveraged technology best practices?