Everyone has heard some variation of this proverb. Football coaches infamously use “when preparation meets opportunity…good things happen”.

Recently, I was feeling lucky with how the application we’ve been working on (http://slatecrm.com) has been coming along. And it made me consider how this luck came about.

It occurred to me that certain standard practices/conventions we were using created happy accidents. The phrase “convention over configuration” is well known to software developers. It simply means that something will follow a standard rather than having to be configured every time. Conventions tend to be less formal than standards, but do provide many of the benefits.

Think of all of the standards and how that makes things better. From car parts, to gas, even doors for example. They tend to open a certain way. The handles are expected to release the lock when pressed downward. And because they come in standard sizes, they are easily swappable.

I suspect most businesses have conventions, unwritten policies about the way things are done. Many times this conventional wisdom is passed down to new hires, the kind of things not found in the employee manual or welcome package.

So how does this make me lucky?

Avoid reinventing the wheel every time by following a standard, it doesn’t have to rigidly enforced, just the suggested way. When you do that, you’ll be prepared for good things to happen.