Organisational patterns
Alexander defines patterns as "a problem which occurs over an over again
in our environment and then describes the core of the solution to that
problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over,
without ever doing the same twice". In the EKP approach we see organisational
patterns as "generic and abstract organisational design proposals
that can be easily adapted and reused in different organisational situations".
They can be reusable:
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organisational design proposals,
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(best) business practices and designs,
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experiences, or
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knowledge chunks.
As argued by Coad, “finding and applying patterns indicates progress in
a field of human endeavour”. The progress lies in the fact that by constructing
a pattern, domain practitioners condense part of their knowledge on current
domain practice and make it available to others. In fact, a pattern indicates
best practice in a domain, practice that has proved to be sound and efficient,
and can therefore be disseminated. When other practitioners subsequently
reuse this pattern, they benefit from the experience of the pattern designers.
In this way they can create solutions to new problems by combining elements
of solutions to previous problems and avoid “re-inventing the wheel” every
time a new situation needs to be addressed. In other words, patterns are
a medium that helps the dissemination of best practices throughout a domain.
Patterns are built by observing practice in a domain or by trial-and-error.
This means that they are developed by building many EKD models of different
situations. Moreover, the patterns will contain part of the experience
gained by applying or constructing such models, in the form of guidelines
for the application of the pattern. In order to facilitate the reuse of
the knowledge embedded in patterns we have structured the pattern in two
main components – the knowledge component and the usage component The knowledge
component answers questions such as, what problem does the pattern solve,
and how this problem can be solved. The solution to the problem can be
described through free natural language, diagrammatic description (e.g.
an EKD goals model, process model, concepts model, etc.), multimedia content
or a combination of all three. The usage component answers questions such
as, when can the pattern be reused, how can the pattern be reused, what
are the consequences of reusing the pattern, where has the pattern been
reused, etc. Figure 2 depicts the outline of the pattern template used
in the HyperKnowledge project. It was further developed from the one used
in the ELEKTRA project.
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