Emery's Ironclad Test of Best Practices: "For something to be a best practice, it has to be practiced, and it has to be best."
I love it. In relation to recent discussions of "best-yet practices," Dale acknowledges the multitude of problems with best practice systems in this simple statement. The written best practice gets watered down and removed from context. The publishing process is so long that the original practice has moved on from the documented practice.
Even more. The whole idea of capturing a snapshot of "best" and distributing it to everyone breaks the concept of continuous improvement or POOGI (process of ongoing improvement). People continually fiddle with the way they do things, try out new ideas and learn from their mistakes and successes. Maybe a better practice will be to help these people work together to develop and try new ideas.