A transcript of Episode 299 of UX Podcast. James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom are joined by Rich Brophy to discuss best practice and why it should die.

This transcript has been machine generated and checked by Filip Fred. 

Transcript

Per Axbom
Christian Crumlish, Kim Goodwin, Chris Risdon, Susan Weinschenk, Chris Noessel, UX podcast and yours truly, what do they all have in common? They all host the tracks at the continuous learning programme ambition and power on everything from design research to product management. And now you can win a membership for a full year’s access to all of them. Just visit UX podcast dot com slash win and fill out the form before October 15. Best of luck to you.

Computer voice
UX Podcast episode 299.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
Hello, I’m James Royal-Lawson.

Per Axbom
And I’m Per Axbom.

James Royal-Lawson
And this is UX podcast. And we’re in Stockholm, Sweden. And you’re listening to us all over the world from India to Japan.

Per Axbom
Rich Brophy is a Sydney based strategic designer and innovator, he recently gave a talk at UX Australia on the topic of best practice and why we should “kill it” as an idea.

James Royal-Lawson
Rich has worked as a researcher, strategist, advertising, creative, entrepreneur, service designer, and stand-up comedian. He leads the practice arm of the government of New South Wales Digital Service Toolkit, which is an evolving collection of tools and resources to support design and delivery across the sector.

Per Axbom
But rather than call this “best practice”, Rich wants us to focus on what he calls “effective practice”.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
To win when you see the phrase, best practice, I mean, memories come flooding back of all, all the times over all the years where you’re sat there and you’re facing a new, a new challenge, a new design challenge and, and you get calls from everyone product product owners or management whatever say, Oh, can we just can we just find some best practice? And then implement that? And generally, there’s a little there’s a little bit inside me sighs and, and wonders, kind of how much can I be bothered this time to to fight against it? Or do we just run with the best practice and see what happens? Tell us Rich, you know, am I alone in having that kind of heartfelt reaction to best practices when I hear it?

Rich Brophy
I think it depends on what kind of mood you’re in whether you want a quick answer. And then it’s very easy to Google, best design, practice, best practice, design, whatever you want, and shoot it across. But if you’re having one of those days, where or weeks or lifetimes or careers, where you actually really care about design and the work you do that it’s much harder.

I have spent a lot of my career I call it designing design, where you become the most design literate person in the room and people turn to you and they say; “What should we do? How should our organisation be designing?” Which is a massive question, because one’s putting a lot of confidence in your ability and your knowledge, but also, it really puts to the side the complexity of organisations and the way that people think and behave and interact. And I’ve done a bunch of designing of design, you know, creating innovation programmes writing playbooks, I first got into design, running these little innovation sprints. And each week, we would basically go through the same process, which at first I thought was best practice. Turns out, there was only one version of practice.

James Royal-Lawson
And it just design sprints, that kind of thing.

Rich Brophy
But we would do them in three hours right with these and pizza and people who had never done design before. But it was my way to kind of learn how to facilitate design, whilst also solving the world’s biggest problems. With a 3D printer generally, this is about five years ago, it’s…

Per Axbom
Making the world a better place.

Rich Brophy
Yeah, totally. And, but I had this I had this moment a couple of years ago, where I’d started working this government organisation, and on the first day, I don’t know if it’s like this where you guys are from, but in government organisations, your computer doesn’t arrive for a week, your permissions don’t arrive for two weeks. So there’s a lot of thumb twiddling that goes on and so on. Someone gave me their playbook that they just dropped 50 grand on, right, and it was this megatome.

And so I spent the week flicking through this thing and had, you know, 20 pages of mindsets now the 20 of behaviours that had the glossary that explains what these new words mean, instead of using the actual words they should use. And, and so I’ve done a bit of this change in trying to embedding, embed design practice in organisations and I said; “Okay, so now how are we? How are we going to get people in this organisation?” Obviously don’t think like designers to think like designers, they said; “Oh, you know, there’s a section for that.” “Alright, how are we? How are we going to kind of skill them up and give them the kind of the right kind of tangible actions to take?” ” Oh, there’s a whole section on activities.” “All right? How are we going to, you know, how are we going to actually improve things and change practice in this organisation?” “Rich, there’s 150 pages in this thing, we’ve got it covered”.

And I just thought the fact that it was all kind of embedded in this one, Bible of design. It kind of that summed up what is wrong with the way we think about best practice, because it is this finite set collection of ways of working and thinking, that can be documented, that doesn’t evolve that someone can hand down, you know, an executive tells a consultancy, tells a manager tells a design team, tells a frontline worker, this is how to do design. And for me that top down approach is what’s wrong with best practice, I really don’t think that we think about it from the user’s perspective. And the way I talked about it a couple of weeks ago was best practices like that looming shadow member Independence Day, how the ship blocks out the sun, and there’s all these people sitting there doing their work working really hard. And we come in from above with this huge thing that we think that is going to embed best practice on the organisation. They’ve got no idea what it is, how it works, even why they should care. And I think that this mindset of embedding best practice, which I think is a great term that sums up everything that’s wrong. Just needs to change.

Per Axbom
But do you at least believe there’s positive intent there that people actually do think that there is a way of summing it up so that we can work more effectively or save money? Whatever they’re trying to do with the document?

Rich Brophy
Yes, we did, we did a line in the sand, right? When there is nothing, we need a line in the sand. So we know where we stand. But I think the idea of there is a best practice to embed is crazy, you know, for a couple of reasons, right? We as designers know that. It’s this like a Morpheus-evolving collection of skills and mindsets and changes in every condition, right? Everything, every thing you’ve ever written down about how design works, the next time you go to use it, or there’s a small exception, or there’s a big exception is always changing. And that’s just the set of activities that you know about. So I come from Australia, and we have the oldest continuous culture in the world. 50,000 years, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islanders. And there’s this huge back catalogue of ways of thinking about how we interact with the world around us. And we as designers have this back catalogue that goes back maybe 200 years of the way that we design inside organisations. And I think best practice has such a limited scope that really, we need to we need to expand our horizons, because it’s not just about what is working now. But it’s about what’s worked in the past, what could work in the future. Practices just, you know, it’s a bucket to fill, it’s not a thing to define.

James Royal-Lawson
So, so can we do we see a difference in between, I suppose, you know, when you grab brass, best practice off the shelf, and just steal it from someone else, because apparently as the best thing to do, and and then maybe observed best practice, where you’ve monitored how something maybe works in your organisation, or researched how it would how it is operating the organisation and describe a way of doing that, which could be useful to maintain.

Rich Brophy
Yeah, so I like to think about the ideal world and the reality that we work in. So the ideal world is what we hear about when a consultants Swanzey in with a new way of working or thinking, or executives have an away day and they come back and they’re like; “Right, we’re going to be agile, we’re going to be collaborative. These are the ways that we’re going to work and we’re all going to thrive”. That’s the ideal, and that’s great. That’s where best practice lives in my mind. But then there’s a reality where teams don’t collaborate, where the mindsets of leaders are kind of solution lead rather than problem lead, where people just don’t have the time and the bandwidth to actually employ these new methods. And what I like to think about is that where do those two worlds, be like a Venn diagram, where do they overlap? Because that overlapping bit that’s, I call that “effective practice”. That’s the bit where best practice works within the constraints that we have in our world today or in our organisation today. And so for me, the idea of embedding best practice or really uplifting practice is about finding that overlap that effective practice. And just propagating that throughout the organisation.

Because the people who are at the forefront who do really good work, who know how things work around here, they’re always going to be pushing the envelope, always try new things, that’s what designers do. If the rest of the people in the organisation are using stuff that actually works, we’re no longer pushing them to try this new approach, or, you know, to create or kind of leverage new practice, they’re actually just finding ways to solve problems that they have with something that’s proven to work in the organisation. And so I think effective practice is far stronger than best practice, because best practice is expensive, takes change, management, doesn’t get taken up and pushes things on paper, whereas effective practice just helps me solve the problems I have in front of me and do the things I need to do. And it doesn’t have that risk attached. It doesn’t have that, I guess that, all the fluff that sits around embedding best practice in an organisation.

Per Axbom
But so then it sounds like the million dollar question is, how do you find the overlap?

Rich Brophy
So I’ve been working in New South Wales government, we have a Digital Service Toolkit, which is there to help anyone who’s designing and delivering services in New South Wales Government, for our citizens, to do it effectively, efficiently. And so what we did is we were looking at ways we could enable people to research do better research across government. And so firstly, we just spoke to people who weren’t able to do research for a variety of reasons, and understood their kind of behaviours right there. They’re trying to sell in research to their leaders, they’re, but not succeeding, they’re doing it, but they don’t know how to get over those humps, say from findings to insights. Or they have opportunities, they don’t know how to prioritise them. They have questions, they don’t know how to ask them to users. And so we saw that there was a need, right that people in that, in those situations, had identified problems that they wanted to overcome.

We spoke to their leaders who talked a lot about delivering, I just want to see progress, I want to see the thing that comes out of each of these different activities. So then we had that tension, right? People had the had the energy to start to do research, but didn’t really have the means we had the leaders who could define quite clearly what they wanted to see as a result. And so then, looking at that tension, we looked at who are the people that are overcoming these called them slices of the design process, how they overcoming these problems, and delivering something that’s resonating with leaders. And so, really, we just spoke to people that kind of had a reputation for doing good design and government and said; “These are the problems of the people who are trying to start and use their research. What have you done to alleviate or to get over these humps? And what does that look like when when you produce the output?”. And then all of a sudden, you’ve got this kind of these, this magic formula for saying; “Alright, yes, that’s in because that solves a fine slice of the design process, it gives leaders something, and it’s proven to work and you can provide me the context that helps”. That’s going to help anyone do this thing in the organisation.

James Royal-Lawson
So that’s interest, because there you’ve got with knowledge sharing, I guess, is the is the root of what you’re describing there that this is stuff I’ve done. And this is my experience of when I did it, hope this is useful for you. And I suppose that’s quite contrasting, to prescribe to dogma, where you’ve got a best practice, and this is the ultimate, whereas you’re not really there. You’re not sharing knowledge there. You’re not kind of saying this is what I didn’t hope is useful for you. You’re saying, I did this. It’s correct. You all should do it.

Rich Brophy
Yeah, and someone, I ran a open space workshop, and we talked about what is what is best practice and someone had this really interesting response where they said best practice is, is something that we take away from a successful deliverable. So when something succeeds, we go, ah, that’s best practice. And then we try and sort of almost retrospectively apply it to our situation. But yeah, I guess my thesis is that best practices, anything that helps me make progress in my organisation, are effective practice, rather. And so I think for me, what’s really interesting about it is that if you have effective practice, you know, if we do best practice, here’s how you’ve got to think here’s the six steps that you need to take.

This is what the deliverable needs to look like. You need to give people all those kinds of boundaries and constraints and steps along the way, you know, for them to do the thing, right. Whereas if you take something that’s proven to work, and give the context of how it works in this organisation, when someone has a problem that’s going to solve, they’re very motivated to make it work for them. You’re minimising that anxiety of trying something new, because it’s proven to work around here. And you’re giving them ingredients to adapt it to their context as well, you know, well, my boss hates journey maps. All right, well, let’s find a different way to do it. But these ingredients are the right ingredients for me to do the thing, I’m not going to talk about transformation, I’m going to talk about change, because, you know, that’s what works around here.

Per Axbom
And that’s such a good point, just changing the words around, because that allows you to avoid these dilemmas where people actually react to the word instead of talking about the topic at hand, which tends to happen a lot. What I’m wary of is that we even if you say effective practices, and we’re trying to see help people see, this is what worked over here, in this context, and it may well work over here, in your context. You think the context are pretty similar, but you may have taken the had the wrong conclusions about what why it works in the first case, and so you’re still giving the wrong recommendations. There’s the bigger perspective is always so hard when you’re trying to tie down. And it’s still a checklist of things to do.

Rich Brophy
Yes, it is. So what, so we produced this, we call it the activities and templates hub, because that’s what it was. And something that we did is instead of creating a linear process, we had, we just had big buckets, right? Planning research, doing research, using research, because people have their own content, “we have a quadruple diamond in our team”, “we have a double diamond”, “we don’t talk about design in our team”, didn’t actually matter what, what design looked like in that team, what mattered was how they were going to use it. And so we have things like turning assumptions into research questions, you know, mapping actions to impact really basic stuff. So I think the way that we were, our hypothesis really is that if it’s sort of straightforward and simple enough, it’s almost a logical thing that you’re doing. It’s not. Like I said, before, these were slices of the design process, they weren’t, hey, this is how you create a great product that’s too big. And that’s too ambitious. And that is too contingent on the context that people are working in.

So by by really bringing it down to these are the points where people get stuck. And this is the kind of the logical steps that are required to get through here. And here’s a way to do it. I think we, we get around the challenge of working in different contexts. And also, this is a government product, and the challenges of working in government, even around the world from the people I’ve spoken to, you know, solution first design, people not collaborating, you know, knowledge is power. Just show me the thing. So I can put it on LinkedIn, and impress my colleagues like, they’re true all over the world. So, so as long as you’re designing with those kinds of big, big forces, then you’re on a good weekend, I reckon.

Per Axbom
That really resonated with me when you said, because it’s really back to basics. That it’s you’re finding the pain points, really, what where do people usually struggle? And addressing those points?

Rich Brophy
Well, it’s got to be usable, right? People are coming to this new and I think as designers, we get, we, our heads go up very quickly, when it comes to telling people how design works. We just need to chill out a bit and go, actually, I know enough to take a step back and understand what’s really going on here. Now let’s employ that human centred design have been working on and think about what’s actually going to work for people and talk about enabling rather than embedding because people are motivated to do stuff. I also talk about process, sorry, progress, rather than practice because people don’t care about practice, they care about moving forward. And so when we reframe, embedding best practice, to enabling effective progress, not a sexy phrase, but a useful phrase. When you reframe it like that, it puts you in a user centric mindset, it reminds you what you actually have to do to propagate effective design practice in an organisation.

James Royal-Lawson
I do like this reframing because, well, best practice is, is solution space. I mean, that’s, that’s you hunting for a solution. Whereas with effective, the effective way of working, what you’re talking about is that’s reframing it so you’re understanding, oh, what’s the problem so we can then explore solutions rather than just running straight after one that’s been thrown at you.

Rich Brophy
I think one of the challenges is that a lot of a lot of us I have done a three month or a two week design course and been told that this is the double diamond. And this is how it’s going to work. And this is how it will work for you. And when you’ve only got one thing to look out or point to, when there’s only one rock to cling on, you’re holding on to that rock. And so when the people at the top of the organisation only understand design at that level, then, of course, embedding best practice is a great answer. Because best practice exists. I learned about it two weeks ago. Let’s all do it.

Per Axbom
Do you think there’s something to be said about how junior designers and senior designers approach this differently? I teach a course at a vocational college and it’s still surprises me every year that they still quote Jacob Nielsen, and well, people believe that after three seconds if they don’t find what they want, and stuff like that. Some people just really need the best practice quotations because it helps them feel safe.

Rich Brophy
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like we all do, right? And we want to, we want to feel smart when we’re feeling vulnerable. And so there’s definitely, I’m not saying, well, actually, I did a talk that was literally called death to best practice. So I do think it kind of needs to die, but you know, let’s have its photo on the wall when it’s gone. So that we can, you know, so that we do have something to hang on to.

James Royal-Lawson
And we put things in the business world, the best practice is kind of, I suppose, the the natural state, because, you know, organisations will always want to do something, the quickest, cheapest way, unless there is some kind of external framework that pulls them back. Whether it’s whether it’s, you know, ISO standards, or laws, or incredibly strong culture, or define culture, those are the things I guess that, that stop best practice from running away and being something really awful or bad or not kind of practical for your organisation.

Rich Brophy
I didn’t actually understand that…

James Royal-Lawson
…I don’t think it wasn’t a question Rich, to be honest, I was just reflecting on the on the fact that, you know, runaway organisations. So if you’re gonna just let an organisation drive onwards, using best practices in the quickest and and most prescribed solutions, then then it’s basically a train going down the track without any working brakes, there’s, you know, you’ve got to pull in other aspects to restrain an organisation to keep it healthy.

Rich Brophy
Yeah, but I do wonder if organisations that believe there is “the way” is actually good for designers, because when we get handed down the truth, and we’re a bunch of creative free thinkers who want to try stuff and evolve and change, it actually, it actually brings our community bit closer, because we have a reason to talk to each other, we have something to push against. And what I think is really nice, is that we have to disprove best practice, we have to go no, there is a better way. Here’s a situation where I’m going to try the thing. I think if you’re lucky enough to work in an organisation where people will let you try new stuff, or are open to different approaches on each project that you work on. Like, you have to use that because it’s such a such an amazing opportunity as a designer, and if you don’t have it, be a deviant. Be a design-rebel, and push it a little bit further try new things find a little opportunity. “Oh, I didn’t realise you’re coming to the workshop. We’re doing something totally different today in your come. Let’s just try it out”. Yeah, because that’s like, that’s the fun, exciting bit of design that I think keeps us engaged in the practice side of it.

Per Axbom
Totally agree. And that’s also to the point that you made about stepping back and looking at it from another perspective or looking at the bigger picture. But that’s often the things that we aren’t allowed to do. Like, for me, a big part of design is stepping back and actually taking some time off in a way and going for a walk. But that’s not usually part of design descriptions at work. I mean, workplaces don’t really appreciate you going for that walk in the middle of the afternoon, just to work on something…

James Royal-Lawson
…Do you mean Per that the Google Design Sprint doesn’t include a two hour walk through the forest as a way of formulating your ideas.

Per Axbom
I have no idea if thankfully, I’ve never read about the Google Design Sprint. Stayed away from that one. *Rich, Per and James laughing*

Rich Brophy
I think, I think that walk is a good bit that, I was thinking about it today. It’s kind of the way we think about our design practices often like Lego, right, or Lego technique, right? Really small, tiny bits and tweaking, changing little things. But once you’ve been in that world for long enough, you can step back and there’s actually big blocks of Duplo, right? Which are the way that individuals are motivated. The way that groups work together. The way that diverging and converging actually changes where you go and how you get there. And I think that if you can, yeah, go for the walk, recognise the Duplo, come back in, move that and fiddle with the Lego then that’s actually how, as an individual practitioner, that’s how your design practice evolves.

Per Axbom
And I like taking out the saw and cutting up the pieces and see if we can assemble them in a completely different way. *Rich laughs* And then there are people who can’t afford the Lego, they have to buy the roadblocks.

Rich Brophy
Are you also the guy that peals the stickers off a Rubik’s Cube?

Per Axbom
I have done that one.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, I’ve done that too. Best practice, the quickest way you can do the Rubik’s Cube just, I used to pull them apart and put them all together, because I didn’t like it when the stickers peeled off. So actually dismantled it. And that kind of made them all really weird and looser. So it wasn’t a long term solution. It got got to the goal of delivering a completed cube.

Per Axbom
So what’s your message to our listeners? Rich? What should they be doing differently tomorrow?

James Royal-Lawson
What’s your best practice?

Rich Brophy
I think so I’ve got a micro and a macro. Well probably a macro and a meta. I think the macro, if you’re in a position of influence where you get to guide, the way we work together that might just be with a client, they might be with juniors, they might be with execs or other teams. Try new stuff, let it fail. Because your role if you know what you’re doing, is to bring stuff in and let people try it. If you’re a junior, just jump in and try a bunch of different stuff. I was talking to someone the other day who said, he said What should I do? I’m learning, working legal design on the side. He said, I’m learning law. And I’m learning design if you’ve got any advice, and I was like, just like, just pick up practice as you go. Don’t try and see don’t have one tool set, gather what works for you, and keep evolving as you go through your through your education, because that’s actually what works in the real world. I think that’s what junior designers need to do.

The meta advice that I have is that I don’t know the answer. No one knows the answer, right? We’re trying to change organisations and individuals and really outcomes for the better, and no one’s cracked it. So there’s three things you need to do one, you got to think deep, think about what those pieces of Duplo are. Two, you need to give a shit because is really hard to actually change things at scale. And so if you’re not actually committed to improving practice, if that is part of your role, then don’t chill out, ask for a different job description, because you really need to care about it. And the last one is have fun, because it is hard. And it’s a long, long game to actually change practice in any organisation. And so try and have fun and enjoy it because it’s a it’s a slow paced layer, the the mindset change or the practice change in an organisation. So, experiment, try new things take design a little less seriously. And I think that’ll sustain you and actually deliver better outcomes in the long run.

James Royal-Lawson
Excellent. That’s a good summary to finish off on Rich,

Per Axbom
Beautiful advice. Yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
Thanks very much for joining us today.

Per Axbom
Thank you Rich.

Rich Brophy
It’s been a pleasure, fellas.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
When listening back to that interview, chat with Rich I realised that the whole thing with best practice, it’s it’s just a, it’s like a big onion. With we’ve got layers of best practice. It’s not it’s not just one thing that’s best practice. I mean, I went into the beginning thinking from a perspective of like, interaction design patterns…

Per Axbom
…Yeah, very hands on…

James Royal-Lawson
…Yeah. And how we’re kind of always told to kind of like, well, what’s the best practice with of implementing that particular bit of interaction design? And, you know, but at the same time, there’s ripples of best practice come through all layers of work. And Rich was talking a lot there about the the design of design, that design practice and best practice for managing design in your organisation. On that, quite quickly evolves into business design, of course, how how do you operate your business? In the best way possible? So yeah, we’ve, we’ve, it’s layers and layers of best practice. And…

Per Axbom
…I really liked what he said about about language as well and how, because that that’s sort of related to what you’re saying is that it’s layers, but it’s also so when we say when we use that phrase, “best practice”. What do we even mean? And that can confuse a lot of people because it sort of implies that there’s a limit to how good you can be by being the best. You can’t be better than that.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, like we mentioned in the interview, I mean, best practice implies an endpoint. At best. It’s not, it’s not better practice or anything like that. It’s best. It’s a definitive, definitive answer.

Per Axbom
And that even discourages people to think for themselves. Because why would they? Because now they found the best solution to something or the best way of doing something or approaching it, then why would they think for themselves, now it’s done.

James Royal-Lawson
So the overriding point about avoiding the language of avoiding the phrase best practice is a healthy one, because we were straight away when we’re asking for best practice. We’re effectively telling someone, you’re not allowed to research this, you’re not allowed to spend time exploring your options, opportunities, I want you to go out there and grab something and come back and tell me this is the thing. So we’re closing doors with the phrase.

Per Axbom
Right. And that’s sort of what I want to wanted to get at with, with the context that like these ways of working and the standards they like, they’re like, they may be the square peg answer to a round hole question. But you don’t really know that because you’re not interested in understanding the question. You’re interested in the best practice.

James Royal-Lawson
So yeah, so it’s business design. We know how we deal with best practice how we deal with exploratory work and coming to the right conclusion of what’s what’s the best thing to do in your context, is challenging. Because like I said, businesses, businesses generally want to do things cost effectively, and time efficiently. And being ready to fail, taking a step back, reframing to enable effective progress. It’s a leaf, is gonna be a leaf, of leap of faith for many organisations.

Per Axbom
Yeah, it really is. It’s like we’re always looking for this, this ultimate tool to make design less messy, but I think if design isn’t messy, it risks missing all these very important aspects of both the problems based in the solution space, so we’re trying to be more efficient, but instead we become less effective. So I mean, no, no artefact, no matter how beautiful or, or well communicated, will tell you anything about its efficacy. So you have all these models and checklists, and templates and standards they can, they can be really truly helpful in starting something but the rarely the best place to finish, because the problem you are working on is likely very unique.

James Royal-Lawson
Yes, exactly. It is unique. You can you can be inspired. You can use all these examples from other people’s work to inspire your work. But the you can’t be sure something else is best for you. Recommended listening for this show. I’m going to suggest episode 224. Which is the business value of design,

Per Axbom
which was in person here in Stockholm. That was a good interview.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, design thinking why it matters. Why it’s okay not to be perfect the nuances of value creation and overcoming tension and fears in the organisation. I think there’s I think you can definitely learn or complement this conversation with that conversation.

Per Axbom
Remember to keep moving

James Royal-Lawson
See you on the other side

[Music]

Per Axbom
James, when I was a kid, my mother told me I could be anyone I wanted to be…

James Royal-Lawson
…anyone you wanted to be?

Per Axbom
…Yeah. But as it turns out, identity theft is a crime.

James Royal-Lawson
[Sigh-laugh]

This is a transcript of a conversation between James Royal-Lawson, Per Axbom and Rich Brophy recorded in September 2022 and published as episode 299 of UX Podcast.