[ Invisible ]

When standards or procedures are working well, they are almost invisible, and maybe even are taken for granted.  When they are referred to often for ‘the answer’, that means they’ve achieved their goal.  It means they are simple but elegant, and more importantly, understood and used.  Good standards or procedures clearly represent the technical knowledge of the users who apply them. 

Standards and procedures are good when they produce a reliable result.  That’s the point of having standards and procedures.   But like all elegant things, it’s not easy to achieve.  Getting to reliability includes dealing with a lot of ambiguity.