Best practice does not always mean best fit.

When something looks familiar, we tend to reach for the solution we already know. That can happen because the deadline is tight, because the industry standard is easier to defend, because the pattern has worked before, or simply because there isn’t enough time to step back and consider the full context.

The logic usually feels reasonable: this is the common pattern, this is what similar products do, this is the accepted approach, so this is probably what we should do too.

And sometimes that’s exactly right.

But familiarity can create false confidence. Two situations can look similar on the surface and still require very different decisions once you understand the details. The users may be different. The level of risk may be different. The technical constraints may be different. The frequency of use may be different. The organization may be different. The consequences of getting the decision wrong may be very different.

A familiar problem doesn’t automatically deserve a familiar solution.

Before I apply a best practice, I want to understand the full context around it. Who’s using this? What are they trying to accomplish? What happens if they make a mistake? What limitations are we working within? What does the technology allow? What does the business need? What already exists? What’s likely to change?

Those details matter because a good decision can’t be separated from the environment around it. A practice that works beautifully in one situation may create unnecessary friction in another. A solution that makes sense for a small product today may become inadequate as complexity increases. An approach that works for experienced users may frustrate someone using the product for the first time.

The practice itself didn’t become bad. The fit changed.

And as circumstances change, the best fit can change with them.

One of the most important questions behind any best practice is simple: why does this work? What problem is it solving? What behavior is it supporting? What tradeoff is it making? What assumptions does it depend on?

Once you understand that, you’re in a much better position to decide whether the practice actually applies. Without that understanding, it’s easy to copy the visible answer without understanding the reasoning behind it.

That’s where rigid thinking starts. A pattern becomes a rule. A recommendation becomes a requirement. “This usually works” becomes “this is how we do it.”

And eventually, the thinking stops.

There’s value in consistency. Familiar patterns can reduce cognitive load. Standards can make systems easier to use. Proven approaches can help teams move faster.

But consistency should never become a substitute for judgment. “We always do it this way” isn’t a reason by itself. Neither is “everyone else does it this way.” The question is whether it still makes sense here.

Rigid thinking can make a process feel safe while quietly limiting better possibilities. Innovation often begins by challenging the status quo, not because everything old is wrong, not because convention should be rejected, but because progress requires us to ask whether the assumptions behind the current approach still hold.

Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s no. The important part is that we asked.

Good judgment isn’t instinct without evidence. It comes from understanding enough of the situation to make a thoughtful decision.

That means best practices still matter. Research matters. Experience matters. Patterns matter. Industry standards matter. They should all be part of the conversation. But none of them should replace it.

The more context you have, the more confident you can be in the decision you make. And that confidence is different from simply following what has already been accepted.

There’s another mistake we can make after finding the right fit: we can assume it will remain the right fit forever.

It may not. Products grow. Organizations change. User behavior changes. Complexity increases. Technology creates new possibilities. Risk changes.

A decision that was completely right at one stage can become the wrong decision later. That doesn’t mean the original choice failed. It means the context changed.

Good product thinking requires us to keep paying attention. The goal isn’t to find the answer once and defend it forever. The goal is to keep understanding the situation well enough to make the best decision for where you are now.

Best practices are valuable. They give us evidence. They give us patterns. They give us somewhere to begin.

But they shouldn’t do the thinking for us.

Understand why they work. Understand the situation in front of you. Use your judgment. Then decide what actually fits.

Because the goal isn’t to follow what works for everyone else. It’s to understand your situation well enough to know what works for you.