Joe Townsend has written an article along the lines what I have been saying for a while now – in Agile there is no ‘best practice’, and as Townsend puts it
What works for you, your team, division, corporation, etc. can bring another person, team, etc. to a screeching halt.
In particular, one needs to be very careful when trying to take waterfall best practices and trying to apply it to an agile context. Many of waterfall concepts and best practices are counter-productive and ineffective on agile projects.
Its only semantics, but the term ‘best practice’ often means this is the best way to do things and trumps all other approaches. I prefer the use the words ‘lesson learned’ or ‘guidance’. What one or more teams have done, should be used as a lesson learned that is to be adapted to the environment you are applying it to and used as guidance. No practice will work for everyone or every team in every context.
Before applying a lesson learned or guidance, you should ask yourself does it make sense and does it align with agile values and principles? Does it help me deliver software more quickly to my customers? Does it help with achieving technical excellence? Remember to discuss with the team before using any lesson learned or guidance.