NAME: Pattern CATEGORY: Context Setting
Patterns
- CONTEXT: You are an experienced practitioner in your field. You have noticed that you keep using a certain solution to a commonly occurring
- PROBLEM: You would like to share your experience with others.
- FORCES:
- Keeping the solution to yourself doesn't require any effort
- Sharing the solution verbally helps a few others but won't
make a big impact in your field.
- Writing down your understanding of the solution is hard work
and requires much reflection on how you solve
the problem.
- Transforming your specific solution into a more widely
applicable solution is difficult.
- People are unlikely to use a solution if you don't explain
the reasons for using it.
- Writing down the solution may compromise your competitive
advantage (either personal or corporate.)
- SOLUTION:
- Write down the solution using the pattern
form.
- Distribute the resulting pattern to the largest audience you
feel it could help that does not compromise your competitive advantage. Often, this means publishing your
patterns
exclusively within your company via Intranets or company journals.
- EXAMPLE: An example would be this pattern itself.
