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Taking Best Practices and Advice with a Grain of Salt

Summary

In this episode of Developer Tea, host Jonathan Cottrell explores the importance of critically evaluating professional advice and best practices rather than accepting them as universal truths. He explains that the common tendency to treat authoritative-sounding advice as absolute can lead to implementing practices that don’t actually work for one’s specific situation.

Cottrell outlines several key factors that make universal best practices problematic. Different work environments (like product-focused companies versus agencies), individual values (such as work-life balance preferences), varying skill sets and experiences, and changing client requirements all contribute to making each developer’s context unique. What works for one person or team may be completely ineffective for another due to these fundamental differences.

The host emphasizes that best practices should be viewed as pointers to potential solutions rather than definitive answers. He suggests studying the context behind any recommended practice to understand the circumstances in which it proved successful. This approach allows developers to extract wisdom from others’ experiences while recognizing that their own situation requires tailored solutions.

Cottrell concludes with practical advice: developers should actively measure the effectiveness of any practice they adopt in their daily work. Even advice from respected, experienced professionals should be tested and evaluated rather than blindly implemented. This measured approach ensures that practices actually contribute to success rather than being adopted simply because someone else recommends them.

Recommendations

Tools

  • QuickBooks API — Mentioned during the sponsor break as having an API built with developers in mind using OpenID, OAuth, and REST standards, with free access to publish apps on Intuit’s marketplace.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to taking advice with a grain of salt — Jonathan Cottrell introduces the episode’s theme about not blindly trusting advice, even from respected sources. He explains that ‘taking with a grain of salt’ means testing advice to see if it works for your specific situation. The perspective originates from feedback he received from Chris Coyer about avoiding blanket statements.
  • 00:01:40 — Why universal best practices don’t work — Cottrell explains that not everything works for everyone because people have different situations and are fundamentally doing different work. He contrasts a five-person product team with a twenty-person agency working on multiple projects weekly. These different contexts mean advice that works for one may not work for the other.
  • 00:02:40 — Individual factors affecting what works — The host discusses how personal values, experiences, and natural skills influence what constitutes a best practice. Different people value different aspects of work (free time, benefits, remote work), and have varying abilities (like note-taking needs). These individual differences mean practices must be tailored rather than standardized.
  • 00:03:40 — How working relationships affect practices — Cottrell explains that client relationships and project goals also influence what practices are effective. Even with identical functional requirements, different clients or customer bases can require different working strategies. The human and value structures surrounding projects create unique contexts that demand customized approaches.
  • 00:05:55 — What we can learn from best practices — After a sponsor break, Cottrell returns to discuss how to properly learn from best practices. He suggests viewing them as pointers to successful approaches rather than definitive answers. Understanding the context and circumstances behind why a practice worked for others provides wisdom that can be adapted to one’s own situation.
  • 00:07:44 — The importance of measuring effectiveness — The host emphasizes that developers must measure how effective any practice is in their own work. Blind adoption without evaluation is problematic, even when advice comes from wise or experienced sources. Daily measurement ensures practices actually contribute to success rather than being implemented based solely on others’ recommendations.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2015-04-13T11:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:09:08

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey everyone and welcome to Developer T. My name is Jonathan Cottrell and today I’m going

[00:00:04] to be talking with you about taking best practices and advice with a grain of salt.

[00:00:11] Now if you don’t know what that phrase means, it basically means that you shouldn’t just

[00:00:17] trust the advice that you receive from people, whether you respect those people or not.

[00:00:23] You shouldn’t just blindly trust that advice.

[00:00:26] You should take it with a grain of salt.

[00:00:28] In other words, you should take it and test it for yourself.

[00:00:32] You should take it and find out if it’s actually true for your situation.

[00:00:37] Now this perspective comes from a conversation that I had with Chris Coyer over email.

[00:00:43] I sent him something to give me feedback on and he responded by saying, you shouldn’t

[00:00:49] blanket statement this for everyone.

[00:00:51] You should say, well, this works for me and it might work for you.

[00:00:56] And I thought about that for a long time and I realized that a lot of us and maybe you,

[00:01:02] we all take advice and we immediately take it as the absolute truth.

[00:01:09] It’s easy to do that.

[00:01:10] It’s easy to think that just because somebody speaks in a way that sounds authoritative

[00:01:16] or because somebody has experience or because somebody has done a significant amount of

[00:01:21] research in a particular area that whatever it is that they have to say about our professional

[00:01:26] work or about our development practices, that that should be taken as absolutely true and

[00:01:33] that we should immediately implement all of their ideas.

[00:01:36] And that’s just simply not true.

[00:01:40] That’s not true because not everything works for everyone.

[00:01:44] And why is that?

[00:01:45] Why is it that not everything works for everyone?

[00:01:48] Well, we have a lot of factors that go into what works for us because we all have different

[00:01:53] situations and we are all different people.

[00:01:56] So each of us are doing something different.

[00:01:59] That’s one factor.

[00:02:00] We fundamentally are doing something different.

[00:02:03] So there may be a company that is working on a single product and that’s where all of

[00:02:07] their energy goes.

[00:02:09] And they have five people who are working on it.

[00:02:11] And then there may be a 20 person agency that they are working on 10 different products

[00:02:18] and they do them all on a weekly basis.

[00:02:22] Those two situations are fundamentally different and therefore when you try to give advice

[00:02:27] to one, it’s going to be very different for the other in a lot of ways, most likely.

[00:02:33] Number two, a factor that goes into what works for us is who we are.

[00:02:40] You know, you might have different values as the person next to you.

[00:02:44] You might value having free time.

[00:02:47] You might value, maybe you value the benefits that your job provides or maybe you value

[00:02:53] being able to work from home.

[00:02:56] These are all different things that provide or that are different about each of us.

[00:03:02] I don’t necessarily have the same values as the next person.

[00:03:06] And so when you start talking to us both about best practices, then our values might

[00:03:12] inform what is a best practice for one or the other.

[00:03:15] We also have different experiences and we have different natural skills and talents.

[00:03:20] So it might not be necessary for me, for example, to take a lot of notes about what I need to

[00:03:28] do for the day, whereas the next person, they may be very detail oriented and taking those

[00:03:33] notes might help them.

[00:03:36] So the next thing that plays into this is who are we actually working with?

[00:03:40] When a client changes or when the customer base changes, values and goals of a particular

[00:03:47] project, whatever you’re building, those things change as well.

[00:03:51] The underlying value and the human structure that require you to change your working strategy,

[00:03:57] those may be different for two apps that have the same functional requirements.

[00:04:03] You might develop one thing way faster for one client than you would for another client,

[00:04:09] for example, and therefore your best practices just simply change.

[00:04:14] And there’s so many things that go into this that it’s very hard to cover them all in one

[00:04:18] podcast.

[00:04:19] So trust me in knowing that one single best practice for everyone is just not feasible.

[00:04:28] So one size just doesn’t fit all.

[00:04:31] It doesn’t really do justice to the complexity of application development and it doesn’t

[00:04:35] do justice to the complexity of humanity.

[00:04:39] Now what can we learn from best practices?

[00:04:41] Well, I’ll tell you, I’m going to take a quick sponsor break and then I’ll tell you what

[00:04:45] we can learn from best practices.

[00:04:48] There are some really good insights that we can gain from best practices and from the

[00:04:52] studies that come from them.

[00:04:53] So here’s a quick word from our sponsor.

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[00:05:40] Just go to developer.intuit.com today to get started.

[00:05:44] There will also be a link in the show notes to let Intuit know that you’re a developer

[00:05:47] T listener, which is a huge help to the show.

[00:05:50] Check it out in the show notes on developerT.com.

[00:05:55] So what can we learn from best practices?

[00:05:58] Well, first of all, let’s go back and say that best practices just simply don’t work

[00:06:03] the same way for everyone.

[00:06:04] We should take this concept of best practice and this concept of advice, we should take

[00:06:11] all of that with a grain of salt and always remember that our situation is unique.

[00:06:17] Everything that we experience is unique.

[00:06:20] Whatever it is that you are developing that day, it is unique for you that day.

[00:06:25] And in fact, if you were to develop it the following day, it would be different from

[00:06:30] the day before because things have changed in the world around you and you have changed.

[00:06:35] So what can we learn from best practices?

[00:06:38] Well, let’s look at them for what they are and that’s how we learn from them.

[00:06:43] Best practices are these practices that are defined by doing some sort of study on what

[00:06:50] is most often the best way, the most successful way to do something.

[00:06:55] In fact, best practices are ways that we can learn how someone or quite a few someones

[00:07:02] succeeded doing things in a particular way.

[00:07:05] It’s usually a pointer to a way of figuring out how to do something.

[00:07:10] If you look at a best practice, most often what you will do will not vary very far from

[00:07:17] that best practice.

[00:07:19] And there’s wisdom that can be gained by understanding the circumstances of the people who are practicing

[00:07:25] that particular thing.

[00:07:27] So if you look at the study and read whatever that particular practices study says, then

[00:07:33] you can understand more about the context of that best practice.

[00:07:37] You can understand more about the person and what they were trying to do and how they succeeded

[00:07:42] in doing it.

[00:07:44] We can try these things, but we must measure their effectiveness and that is the key to

[00:07:50] success in this world of best practices.

[00:07:54] We must measure how effective best practices are, otherwise we’re just adopting them blindly

[00:08:01] without knowing how they’re affecting us.

[00:08:03] We’re adopting these best practices because somebody tells us to and that’s not a good

[00:08:07] idea.

[00:08:08] There’s never a good reason to just simply take what somebody says and apply it to your

[00:08:13] life.

[00:08:14] And I would say that is true once again for this podcast and anything you hear from anyone

[00:08:19] else.

[00:08:20] Measure the effectiveness of the advice that you’re receiving, even from the most wise

[00:08:25] people that you know, even from the most experienced people that you know.

[00:08:30] Make sure that you measure the effectiveness of that practice in your work on a day to

[00:08:35] day basis and in your life on a day to day basis.

[00:08:38] Thank you so much for listening to Developer T. I hope you enjoyed this episode and this

[00:08:42] discussion about taking best practices and advice with a grain of salt.

[00:08:47] If you would like to reach out to me, you can reach me on Twitter at developer T or

[00:08:51] you can email me at developer T at gmail dot com.

[00:08:55] Thanks so much to our sponsors and thank you for listening to Developer T and until next

[00:09:00] time enjoy your tea.

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