The most important overall goal should be to find your way of working, either for yourself if you're a lone wolf, or for your team if you're working in one.
A big part of that way of working is to adopt best practices and live by them. There are areas, though, where it's a matter of preference more than one of textbook definitions.
Disclaimer: The following pages describe our WoW, the HSE way.
Obviously, our way of working includes all the other best practices described here, especially: