Case Story: From Proto-patterns to design patterns: understanding the process

Summary	As a project, we identified a difficulty in the flow from proto-patterns to patterns. We decided to track this as reflective practicioners
Group / workshop	Planet team	Status	seed
Project details...	The Planet project works with groups of practitioners to develop design patterns. In order to understand the work process better, we decided to work through it in pairs and track out actions closely.

Situation

What was the setting in which this case study occurred?

The main mode of operation of the Planet project is practitioner workshops, where we collect case studies and guide participants in extracting patterns from them.

Task

What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?

Working with our various groups, we identified a difficulty in moving from proto-patterns to patterns. We have a working process for plucking out the proto-patterns from case studies, but our weak point is in guiding contributors in the transition from proto-patterns to patterns.

Actions

What was done to fulfil the task?

We decided to work in pairs on our existing proto-patterns, developing them to fully-qualified patterns, and closely monitor and document the process.

the pairs are:

• Janet & John
• Isobel &  Jim
• Steve & Yishay

Each pair will choose two patterns to work on, where for each pattern one member would act as author and the other as shepherd.

In the process, we will note:

• how do we move from proto-pattern to pattern?
• what additional support do we need from the platform?
• what are the critical junctions in the process?
• how should we communicate this process to our users?
• how do our patterns map to a structure, and how do we represent this mapping?

Results

What happened? Was is a success? What contributed to the outcomes?

Lessons Learned

What did you learn from the experience?

Licensing

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.