In IT, we love our frameworks. Whether agile, ITIL, lean, cobit, six sigma or others, our thirst for “best practice” guidance seems to be unquenchable.

The concept of a “best practice” is an enigma. Who decides if a practice is actually the best? And best for whom? While an “adopt and adapt” mentality is advocated in most frameworks, there is still a tendency to benchmark efforts against and conform to published best practices. Whether promoting “best in breed,” “world-class,” or “best practices,” many organizations swing these terms around as some form of competitive advantage.

Is it really? Shouldn’t business outcomes be the real competitive advantage and measure whether IT’s practices are really the “best” to meet customer requirements?

The DevOps Institute was founded in 2015 as a global learning community for emerging DevOps practices. Since our launch, we have intentionally avoided any reference to DevOps “best practices.”

We believe that DevOps practices are constantly emerging and, in many cases, being proven in the wild.

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