Institut für Software- und Systementwicklung
Professur Wirtschaftsinformatik, insbes. Informationsmanagement; Prof. Dr. Bogdan Franczyk
Pattern Writing 2004
Workshop with Jim Coplien
2004-07-28: Important Change: After the economy seems so slow that we got zero response from people who are not from academia we will reframe the workshop to people from university of Leipzig (students, teaching assistants). If you are from an other university and if you are interested, feel free to contact us - but we will downscale the event "cost-wise" to a university level.
Why would you want to participate in a Pattern Writing Workshop?
Most software architects and project managers use patterns today. The most known ones are the GOF patterns but in the meantime the body of pattern literature has grown rapidly. But there's far more in patterns than just "templates for good design". The culture behind patterns can make you a more productive software architect or project lead
* the review format of a writers' workshop is suited to make review meetings far more productive than the ordinary "negative style" review meeting. By forcing only positive comments, review meetings become more productive. In order to get this aspect it is good to have experienced it
* patterns make you more conscious about forces (or call them trade-offs) in software design work. If you only read patterns you will not necessarily get this aspect - but if you have made the experience of writing a pattern you will profit from the deeper thinking on forces. This also makes you more productive as you see a design more in the context of forces than in the context of "I am right - no I am right". Often discussions over this or that solutions become religious - with pattern writing you get the skills to take religion out of design discussions and inject productivity
As a bonus you will get some insight into the latest work by Jim Coplien on "Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development"
Who should participate?
We want to run the workshop with about 20 participants - about 50% from industry (software architects and project managers) and about 50% from academia (teaching assistants and advanced students) - this guarantees an optimum atmosphere and learning effect.
Location, Dates, Accommodation
The workshop will be run at Villa Tillmanns - a beautiful old villa right in the middle of Leipzig in 5 minutes walking distance to the city centre.
The workshop will be run on Wednesday, September 29th thru Thursday September 30th, 2004 (2 full days)
You can book accommodation for about 15 participants from industry right in the Villa - see below.
If you feel like if you can also submit a pattern candidate before the workshop and you'll get some feedback from the organizers
Programme
Sept 29th
09:30 Registration
10:00 - 10:30 Welcome Session
10:30 - 12:00 Opening Lecture:
Patterns - where do they come from and how can you profit
Short Intro to the culture behind patterns
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch break
13:30 - 15:00 Opening Lecture continued
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee
15:30 - 16:30 A short introduction to pattern writing
16:30 - ??? Write your pattern - if you haven't done it yet
Tutors will be around
18:00 - 18:30 Live Pattern Culture - Surprise
Sept 30th
9:00 - 9:30 Morning Welcome Session
9:30 - 10:30 Demo Writer's Workshop
We show you how to organize a hyper-productive review meeting
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee
11:00 - 13:00 Writer's Workshops
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch Break
14:00 - 15:00 Writer's Workshops continued
15:00 - 16:00 Coffee
15:30 - 17:00 Lecture: "Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development"
17:00 - 17:15
Workshop ends - Farewell Session
Your Tutor
About Jim Coplien: Jim Coplien (now North Central College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and University of Manchester) is one of the creators of the Pattern Community and a known author and researcher in the field of software design. His first widespread book is "Advanced C++"; another one is "Multi Paradigm Design for C++" and the latest is the upcoming book "Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development". (http://users.rcn.com/jcoplien/).
Yes - I want to participate - who can I contact?
If you're a student or teaching assistant the please contact the chair of Prof. Dr. Franczyk, Mr. Andrej Werner (a.werner@wifa.uni-leipzig.de).
Fees: For university members from university of Leipzig the workshop is free of charge.
Academics from other universities will be treated like professionals. If you're a student from another University, please contact the chair of Prof. Dr. Franczyk, Mr. Andrej Werner (a.werner@wifa.uni-leipzig.de).
Yes - I want join - But what else can I tell my Boss?
* The book by Jim Coplien on "Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development" contains a few chapters on hyper-productive teams and their habits - bosses tend to be interested in such things.
* Have you ever attended one of those review meetings. The reviewers used hours to tell the poor author what was wrong about his design or his concept. The author spend hours defending himself - feeling personally attacked by his reviewers. In the end the author was frustrated, the effect is close to nil because the author walked out frustrated and maybe 10 highly paid professionals spend their time less effectively than they could have spend it, had they known the technique of Writers' Workshops. Now assume you can make this meeting only 50% more productive by cutting it to half the time if you take out all the useless justification "I did this because"; "But I'm right here". You save more by reorganizing a single such meeting than you spend on this workshop.
* Have you ever had the problem that you had to manage the process of finding a solution that is agreed both by your operations department and let's say the web programmers. Both will tell you "we are right" and the quarrel never ends - by making forces and trade-offs explicit you are able to moderate the process of finding a fair solution quickly.
* Or did you ever have to read a design document that presented just the solution but did not present how the team got there. You will find lots of such documentation and you will want to articulate "this does not tell me anything - this documentation is useless" - Pattern writing will introduce you to the skills you need to get other to spend their time on documentation more effectively. They will write with more bang for the buck.
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