Over the weekend, Bill English, Ben Curry, Bleeker and I had an email discussion about best practices. In a recent post I posed the question “what is a best practice?” In order to fully appreciate the discussion, it is important to remember that best practices depend entirely on one’s role and goals. An electrician is not going to have the same best practices as a surgeon obviously.
Todd Bleeker has a developer’s view, Bill English has a system administrator’s view, Ben Curry has an architect’s view, and I have a management/leadership view (more or less).
· My original statement: “A best practice balances resources, schedule, risk and performance to find the correct solution to a problem.”
· Bill English revised it as follows: “A best practices balances resources, schedule, risk, performance and culture to find the correct solution to a problem.”
· Todd Bleeker then modified it further: "A best practice is a course of action which balances security, risks, scheduling, performance, maintainability, and culture to find the right solution to a problem."
· Ben Curry put it this way : “...limited resources is often what drives the best practice - whether a people or financial constraint. Many times, we simply don't get to do "the best practice" because of resource limitations or common sense.”
Each of us has a different role within the SharePoint world, so we are going to see things a little differently. My focus is on making good solid business decisions with regard to technology. It is possible to follow all of the best practices and still go out of business. Compromises and shortcuts are necessary in the real world. The truth of the matter is that if it costs $100,000 to protect certain information, and the risk is $50,000 if it is compromised, then the best practice is probably to provide minimal security.
On the other hand, if you ask Bill English the best practice for setting up a server farm, you will find out how things really should be done. Todd can give you the best way to build a web part, and Ben can show you how to integrate your farm into your larger computing environment.
I can help you figure out how to get the most bang for your buck when you have to pick and choose between various best practices.
Ben, Todd, Bill and I together are an example of a Governance Team. When new technical situation presents itself, we together are much better at governing than any one of us are alone. We won’t immediately agree, and we may even argue, but we all have roughly the same goals. Our viewpoints together help us to triangulate on a correct solution set for a problem, based on the real-world situation in which we operate.
The Governance and Taxonomy Workshop helps you jump start your governance team and establish the framework for your best practices--the taxonomy.
Don't forget the SharePoint Best Practices conference in September!
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