OP's post says more about the consulting industry than the best practices they promote. Let me explain... I was brought in by a Big 5 firm to rescue some of t

OP's post says more about the consulting industry than the best practices they promote. Let me explain... I was brought in by a Big 5 firm to rescue some of their clusterfucks. One project was 18 months old and one year behind. Another was "90% complete" for the past year. They gave me a laptop with their own systems analysis / project management app on it. Everything had to go through it. After 2 days it was clear that this "system" was cause of most of their problems. Why? Because no one thought any more. They just plugged everything into the app and submitted the reports every Friday whether anything made sense or not. I showed the app to a friend of mine who was an expert consultant (not Big 5!). It was clear to him why they did this. He said, "The sole purpose of 'best practices' and tools like this are to make people who don't know what they're doing appear as if they did. They pay people $50 per hour and bill them at $300 per hour. The difference, after expenses, goes to the partners. That's their business model. It's that simple. So, forget about best practices and just do your fucking job. You'll eat them alive." Thanks, Tom. I've been doing that ever since. You were right.