Don't let perfect be the enemy of good ??
Hi there!?
I’m a bit of a perfectionist at heart, which is both a blessing and a curse.
At school, I remember one of my favorite teachers telling me, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”
It really stuck with me—because you can apply it to many different areas in life, including doing science.?
This might seem counter-intuitive, as typically scientists are detail-orientated and rigorous in their work.
But in my experience, being rigorous means accepting that sometimes, you can’t run the “perfect” experiment due to practical constraints.
For example, imagine you want to use Design of Experiments (DOE) to optimize a new assay.
Your DOE textbook may tell you that first, you should test all of the possible variables (or factors) that could affect your response in a “screening” design. Often, this requires lots of runs and plates, especially if you want to test things like different incubation temperatures, or replicate the design across different cell types.?
In a perfect world, this is worth doing. These comprehensive “screening” designs help you pin down which factors are important early on.
But no one lives in a perfect world. As it’s the first step of a DOE campaign, this is often your first experience running a DOE, so it's worth reflecting on what’s realistic and scaling things back.?
How you do that varies from person to person, and from lab to lab. I’ve worked with some scientists who are using automation for the first time; some who have a small volume of a particular reagent; and others who have never performed experiments of this complexity before.?
For these reasons, running the “perfect” DOE isn’t practical, and you would need to leave some factors out in the first instance. One way or another, there’s always some limiting factor, whether that’s time, knowledge, biology, or automation.?
So, free yourself from the expectation of perfection, work with what you've got, and just get started ??
Speak to you soon,
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