What are Best Practices?

According to Wikipedia, “A best practice is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward which conventional wisdom regards as more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance.”

In CAD or BIM it means just that…  it is a method that everyone agrees is better and they all adopt it.

Sounds simple doesn’t it?  But it is hard to move a cadre of CAD users or mountain of BIM modelers in a different direction if they feel they have the best way of doing a specific function.

Philosophically, we all have best practices.  Not many people want to do things the hard way.  We all want to do things easily and efficiently, whether it is mowing the lawn, building a bookshelf or cleaning out the closet.  We all want to get it done and be happy with our results.  So each person comes to a team with a preconceived idea of what is easiest.

This is reflected in design processes and methods of using software.  Each person has a “way” of doing things that they think is “best”.  They encourage others to join them in using the software as they do.  They may deride other ways of getting the work done.

The CAD Managers efforts in this area may be defined as:

Move to a Best Practice for a team or firm by defining one method as the collective best and then unifying the efforts of all toward using this method.