Principles of Discovery and Use
Like other patterns, organizational patterns aren't created or invented: they are discovered (or "mined") from empirical observation. The early work on organizational patterns at Bell Laboratories focused on extracting patterns from social network analysis. That research used empirical role-playing techniques to gather information about the structure of relationships in the subject organization. These structures were analyzed for recurring patterns across organization and their contribution to achieving organizational goals. The recurring successful structures were written up in pattern form to describe their tradeoffs and detailed design decisions (forces), the context in which they apply, along with a generic description of the solution.
Patterns provide an incremental path to organizational improvement. The pattern style of building something (in this case, an organization) is:
- Find the weakest part of your organization
- Find a pattern that is likely to strengthen it
- Apply the pattern
- Measure the improvement or degradation
- If the pattern improved things, go to step 1 and find the next improvement; otherwise, undo the pattern and try an alternative.
As with Alexander-style patterns of software architecture, organizational patterns can be organized into pattern languages: collections of patterns that build on each other. A pattern language can suggest the patterns to be applied for a known set of working patterns that are present.
Read more about this topic: Organizational Patterns
Famous quotes containing the words principles of, principles and/or discovery:
“That, upon the whole, we may conclude that the Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt’s and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son’s future are counting on me.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)