Culture | Cultural organization » Daniel May - Building the Cultural Artifacts of the Organization

Source: http://www.doksinet Building the Cultural Artifacts of the Organization* Daniel May The Maersk Institute University of Southern Denmark, Odense Campusvej 55, Odense M DK-5230, Denmark dmay@mip.sdudk School of Computer Science & Software Engineering Monash University, Caulfield 900 Dandenong Road, Caulfield East, VIC 3145, Australia Abstract The culture of an organization can be grown and disseminated by infusing it in the artifacts of the organization. These artifacts can be physical things, informational objects, or conceptual artifacts. As people internal and external to the organization encounter these artifacts, they also encounter the culture. This paper focuses on conceptual artifactssuch as stories, metaphors, activities, and patternsthat are constructed and used in the life of the organization’s culture. The paper presents a collection of patterns that discuss how to create and apply conceptual artifacts in growing an organization’s culture. Overview The

culture of an organization is critical to its maintenance and growth. An organization’s culture shapes its daily activities, how it understands its past and future, the relationships between the people within and the relationships with outsidersand the decisions that are made over time. In a previous paper (May 2001), an initial version of a pattern language was presented for designing the sustainable organizationan organization that may persist for many years or generations, transcending its initial founders and being highly adaptable. This paper presented a set of patterns organised at three levels at: * The work reported in this paper has been funded in part by the Co-operative Research Centre Programme through the Australian Governments Department of the Industry, Science and Resources. This research was supported in part by the Danish Natural Science Research Council, No. 643-00-000113 Source: http://www.doksinet Start from a Grain starting point Culture that Grows

Culture in the Artifacts Steady Expansion core growth patterns Genius of the AND Constant Exploration Effectiveness from Redundancy expansion patterns Figure 1: Patterns in (May 2001) Starting point comprises the initial pattern in the collection. Core growth patterns comprise those patterns used to build the core of the sustainable organization, enabling it for growth and expansion. Expansion patterns are used to help manage and make choices during expansion One of the ‘core growth patterns’ of this language is Culture in the Artifacts (May 2001): this pattern suggests that culture can be infused throughout the organization by expressing it in the artifacts of the organization. This pattern discusses three types of artifacts where an organization’s culture can be expressed: 1. Physical artifacts: these are physical objects and environments in the organization (e.g pieces of artwork, furniture, rooms, meeting places, equipment) 2. Information artifacts: these are primarily

informational or computational (eg lists, directories, databases, computer applications). 3. Conceptual artifacts: these are objects that we use in our mental or conceptual space (e.g metaphors, stories, patterns, etc) This paper focuses on conceptual artifacts, presenting a set of patterns for their application in building cultural artifacts for the organization.1 Figure 2 illustrates the patterns in this paper and how they relate to the Culture in the Artifacts (May 2001) pattern. 1 The intention is to elaborate on patterns for each of the different types of artifacts presented in Culture in the Artifacts (May 2001) in subsequent papers. Source: http://www.doksinet Stories that Bind Metaphors that Inspire Culture in the Artifacts (May 2001) Activities that Shape Patterns that Capture Figure 2: Patterns for conceptual artifacts The patterns in this paper assume this overall context: you are applying Culture in the Artifacts (May 2001) in your organization, because you want

to grow it by spreading a certain type of culture throughout your organization and you wish to do so by infusing the culture in the organization’s different artifacts. More specifically, Figure 3 illustrates the different contexts in an organization’s trajectory where the patterns may be applied. Patterns That Capture the organization Metaphors That Inspire Stories That Bind Activities That Shape Figure 3: The organization’s trajectory and contexts for patterns Stories That Bind are useful for helping an organization look to the past, drawing from the organization’s history and using it to explain the present and inform future action. Activities That Shape are used to reinforce an organization’s present culture and practice, anchoring to the past (where the activities were practiced) and reassuring towards the future (where these activities will continue). Metaphors That Inspire are used to drive the organization forward, drawing from stories and activities as a

foundation. Patterns That Capture can be applied anywhere in the organization’s trajectory, but are products of more of a reflective, meta-level activity. At any point, patterns can be captured and applied throughout the trajectory of an Source: http://www.doksinet organization. It is likely that the further an organization travels on its trajectory, the more opportunity there is for patterns to emerge and be applied. These patterns focus on how culture in conceptual artifacts may be created. The target user for these patterns is the organizational designer. I use this term to mean someone who has a role in configuring and designing the organization (how it functions, how it is structured). I do not limit this role to management at strategic levels, since any employee can be effective in this activityapplying these patternsat various levels. This effectiveness will vary in proportion to whether an employee is considered a thought-leader and the responsibility/power that the

employee has within the organization.† Notes † The notion of an organizational designer is emergent in the recent literature on organizational theory. In particular, as organizational theory recognizes that organizations may be configured to maximize their capabilities in the knowledge economy (e.g the learning organization as per Senge 1990), there has been increasing focus on how this configuration may be effected (Mintzberg & Quinn 1996). The organization is being increasingly viewed as being model-driven (Groth 1999) with the implication that the model can be changed or replaced. Implicitly, organizational design is the province of the senior or top-level manager; business courses and management theory texts are the main discussion forum for such notions of organizational design and models. These are the people who are thought of as ‘organizational designers.’ Yet we intuitively realize that change can be effected at various levels of the organization, even at a very

local level. Organizational design need not come down from the top but may emerge through, from the efforts of people throughout an organization who are structuring and altering the organizational design in their part of the whole. I suggest that these people are also organizational designers, anyone who may be a change agent in shaping their part of the organization’s model. This is very much a perspective borne of applying systems theory (von Bertalanffy 1968) to the organization, characterized by Senge (1994) 2 and Checkland & Scholes (1990). Manns & Rising (2001) also adopt such a perspective in looking at organizational/system issues with introducing patterns into organizations. 2 Senge (1994): “During the last few years, a new understanding of the process of organizational change has emerged. It is not top-down or bottom-up, but participative at all levelsaligned through common understanding of a system.” Source: http://www.doksinet References von Bertalanffy,

L., General System Theory, G Braziller, 1968 Checkland, P. & Scholes, J, Soft Systems Methodology in Action, John Wiley & Sons, 1990 Groth, L., Future Organizational Design: The Scope for the IT-based Enterprise, John Wiley & Sons, 1999. Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management, Harvard Business School Press, 1998. Manns, M.L & Rising, L, Introducing Patterns into Organizations, http://www.csuncaedu/~manns/intropatternshtml, on-going project last updated Feb 22 2002, checked Mar 23 2002. May, D., Patterns for Building the Sustainable Organization, KoalaPLoP 2001, Melbourne, Australia, 2001. Mintzberg, H. & Quinn, J, The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, Cases, Prentice Hall, 1996. Nonaka, I., “The Knowledge-Creating Company,” Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec 1991 Rising, L. (ed), The Patterns Handbook: Techniques, Strategies, and Applications, Cambridge University Press, 1998. Schultz, M. (ed), Hatch MJ (ed), Larsen, MH (ed),

The Expressive Organization : Linking Identity, Reputation, and the Corporate Brand, Oxford University Press, 2000. Senge, P., The Fifth Discipline, Century Business, 1990 Senge, P., The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, Nicholas Brealey, 1994 Source: http://www.doksinet Stories That Bind Context Part of growing a culture is building a shared memory, solidarity, and sense of belongingthe things that bind an organization together. This shared memory is used to help an organization look back, drawing from its experiences in order to explain the present and inform future action. Problem How do you create a shared memory, solidarity, and sense of belonging? Forces • You cannot create shared memory, solidarity, and sense of belonging by fiat; the best you can do is to create an environment that is conducive to people in the organization sharing with each other, creating the sense of solidarity and belonging. • Capturing ‘shared memory’ is a difficult thing. While explicitly

documenting the culture is an important thing, the form of what is documented is crucial in whether it encourages these elements to be shared. As individuals, we remember things in different ways. • Relating to everyone in the organization is challenging: we all come with different sets of life-experience, attitudes, values and goals. Because of this, it is difficult to create shared memory, sense of belonging, and solidarityattributes of a culture that can grow. We must be able to account for these differences between us Solution Encourage the telling of stories about the organization and people in the organization. Through the life of the organization, there will be various events that mark the evolution of the organizationvariously inspiring, exciting, tragic, and reflective. Storytelling allows a level of personal identification, yet shared meaning, across the organization. One of the strengths of stories is that they can be customized (often unconsciously) by listeners

themselves, in ways that are relevant to them. It is crucial to identify the essence or gist of the story: you can tell the story in different ways with particular language and particular words for different audiences, but the gist is what is communicated and remembered by the listeners. Storytelling can take various forms: • Oral: you can share stories by telling each other orally. This may be in an informal setting, as you recount stories over lunch or in small working groups. Or it may be a more formal setting, for example, where a senior manager is retelling the extraordinary effort of his team in a large company meeting. Source: http://www.doksinet • Documented: you can write down the stories and share them with each other. This may be in an informal setting, as we publish internal newsletters, or a more formal setting, such as publishing in an annual report or writing it in a book about the company. Multimedia allows stories to be conveyed in all kinds of ways.

Rationale The critical element of the story is that it seeks to involve the listener, not merely conveying a set of past or possible events to the listener, but of transporting the listener into a different worldone that is coherent, real, inclusive, and immersive. That is the mark of a true story. By encouraging the telling of stories, two effects take place: 1. Listeners feel involved in the story and the fabric of the organization The stories bind you together, as you listen and as you pass on the stories to other people in the organization. As you do this, you are actively building shared elementsa memory of events for the organization, and common strands that confirm your solidarity. 2. Listeners are inspired to create their own stories As you listen and share stories about the organization and others within it, you find yourself involved in events that will be encapsulated as stories and shared with others. There is an attraction in wanting your storiesyouto be incorporated into

the overall fabric of the culture. And this encourages the sense of belonging: you are part of the culture. Many companies use stories to grow and bind the culture together. Storytelling is a wellidentified technique in the discipline of organizational culture (Schultz et al 2000) and is also seen as a canonical technique of knowledge management (Harvard Business Review 1998). Resulting context As stories are told and shared within the organization, the culture becomes enriched and grows layers. This is a positive thing as the culture is more active and becomes more definable. However, as with anything that has layers, the culture can become weighed down and form prejudices and tunnel visionstories are powerful in creating solidarity, but they can become sacred cows that are difficult to kill (in particular, because stories are often tied to specific people and events). Thus, the binding together of the organization that comes with storytelling may also bring with it a limiting of

one’s perception of possibility. As with the other patterns in this set, the resulting context of this pattern will inevitably involve certain people in the organization feeling less able to relate to the culture of the organization. This is because the artifacts that have been created articulate the evolving Source: http://www.doksinet culture more clearly, and therefore making the gap more distinct between those who fit with the culture, and those who do not. Related patterns Metaphors That Inspire draw on stories to support and explain created metaphors. Stories provide a cultural foundation and link to the past, from which metaphors are drawn. Activities That Shape will be where stories are shared between people. Patterns That Capture will ‘mine’ stories to derive patterns that the organization can use, as well as using stories to illustrate the application of patterns. Stories may also be used as part of the solution component of a pattern. Examples Healthtron, a

healthcare company, is growing its culture by using stories. Seminal moments in the organization’s trek are extracted and used as examples by the staff amongst each other to illustrate key themes and Metaphors That Inspire. For example, a number of staff stayed at the office late after hours one evening in order to help one staff member complete a critical submission to an examination board the next day. The submission required everyone’s input and needed to meet the deadline tomorrow. This heroic effort is now shared as a story among staff, reinforcing the solidarity among staff that worked together that night and inspiring other staff in the company. Other stories are exchanged and disseminated through the organization, including those of difficult and unfortunate incidents that have happened in the company’s life. At AG Communication Systems, the most important element of the entire patterns writing effort was the documenting of stories of past projects by pattern authors. As

pattern users found patterns in the repository, they first turned to the story behind the pattern, documented in the Rationale or Known Uses sections. The stories gave credibility, of course, but also a sense of shared history, as readers were able to identify with the reported projects, “Oh, that’s what happened on 1721!” Source: http://www.doksinet Metaphors That Inspire Context Part of an organization’s culture is its view of the future and how it should get there. This will affect its day-to-day activities. Views of the future tend to be of three types: vision (an overarching perspective), strategies (high-level policies and approaches) and goals (more concrete, lower-level objectives). Problem How do you express an organization’s views of the future that the people in the organization can understand, identity with, and share? Forces • Vision, strategies, and goals have to do with looking forward. So, the way you express these things must be capable of inspiring

and drawing the organization forward. Mere statements of objectives fall short of this aim • Relating to everyone in the organization is challenging: everyone comes with different sets of life-experience, attitudes, values and goals. Because of this, it is difficult to express vision, strategies, and goals in a way that everyone can identify with. You must be able to account for these differences between everyone. • Organizations can be complex, busy placesyou need a way to express vision, strategies, and goals in a compact and concise way. Everyone should be able to relate them back to the daily, routine work that they do. Solution Express vision, strategies, and goals as metaphors. A metaphor transforms the description of one thing into the form of another. You can use this property to transform a set of perspectives of your organization’s future into a form that is more easily understood, appealing at an intuitive level, and evocative at inspirational level. Like stories,

the ability to personally appeal to diverse people in the organization is a strength of metaphors. The right metaphors are powerful in that they are sufficiently vivid to create pictures that people can understand (e.g the company as a family) yet general enough to allow people to create their own internal version of that picture, one that is most personally relevant (e.g my experience and perception of a family) For example, a company’s metaphor of “best friend to the customer” helps employees quickly realize how the company seeks to treat its customers, because it encapsulates our collectiveand individualunderstanding of how we treat our best friends. The metaphor is personal because each employee understands ‘best friend’ in the context of personal experience and can treat customers as ‘best friends’ in the context of that employee’s specific function (e.g waiter, cook, cleaner, secretary, chief executive officer). Source: http://www.doksinet You can create

metaphors not only to communicate vision, strategies, and goals to others in the organization, but also for your own usemetaphors can help to reinforce your understanding of the organization and your place in it. Metaphors can also be used as a lens through which stakeholders external to the organization can understand the organization (e.g customers perceive that they will be treated like a “member of the family” or “a best friend”). Rationale While metaphors can be used for various purposes, they are used in this context to focus the organization on looking forward, helping it understand itself in a way that elevates its gaze from the daily minutiae towards striving forward. To focus an organization on “where it is going.” Metaphors are useful because they can be collectively illustrative and appealing, yet retain enough vagueness that allows us to make it individually relevant and personal . Additionally, metaphors tend to condense the rich content of vision,

strategies, and goals into succinct thought-images. The ability to reify vision, strategies, and goals as metaphors means that you can treat them as distinct entities: enumerating them, discussing and comparing them, replacing them with more appropriate ones over time. Resulting context As metaphors are used to articulate the vision, strategies, and goals of the organization, these metaphors accrete as part of the culture. You have more cultural conceptual artifacts that form part of the culture and make the culture more definable. Metaphors can be lenses that you look through to create a shared understanding of your organization, but may also limit the things that you can perceive. You are as powerfulor as limitedas your metaphors. While metaphors may be created by individuals and associated with certain individuals in the organization, metaphors are not necessarily so linked with individuals in the organization, as much as stories are. Stories tend to be focused on specific events

and happenings (with specific people and what they did); metaphors are more likely to comprise thought-images that not specific to individuals, appealing to general and overarching ideas. This means that the organization may find it easier to create, remove or modify metaphors, cf. stories Metaphors are not as much an obstacle to reinvention as stories can be. This does not mean that changing or dropping a metaphor is painless: metaphors can be missed, but they can be replaced with new ones; stories form part of the collective memory of the organization and cannot be so easily excised or forgotten. As with the other patterns in this set, the resulting context of this pattern being applied will inevitably involve certain people in the organization feeling less able to relate to the culture of the organization. This is because the artifacts that have been created articulate the evolving culture more clearly, and therefore making the gap more distinct between those who fit with the

culture, and those who do not. The example of a company Source: http://www.doksinet metaphor “best friend to the customer” draws a line, including those employees who can relate to customers in this way and excluding those who cannot. Related patterns Stories That Bind are useful to support and explain metaphors. They are useful in providing the cultural foundation and the past, from which metaphors can be drawn. Activities That Shape are where metaphors are shared and disseminated between people. Patterns that Capture will ‘mine’ metaphors to derive underlying patterns. Metaphors may also be used as part of the solution component of a pattern. Examples The use of figurative language and evocative imagery is illustrated in Honda’s metaphor of the Theory of Automobile Evolution. This combined two (contradictory) ideas into the single phrase, that of automobile as machine and that of evolution, normally associated with living organisms. This helped to focus the development

of a next generation concept car by encouraging speculation into the characteristics of such a car. The company also used the slogan “Let’s Gamble,” coloring its approach to designing for a new generation of car driver and departing from the familiarthe metaphor of gambling/chance-taking is substituted instead of traditional engineering. Nonaka (1991) describes these metaphors in use. Melbourne High School (MHS) is a high school that has implicitly used metaphor to shape its students and staff. Founded as a state-run high school 125 years ago, it is unique in requiring entrance examinations to screen students and is steeped in tradition, making it more like a private school. Over time, the school has developed a view of itself that can be described as “crème de la crème”, where staff and students at the school are told to consider themselves as “the best of the best” and are propelled by the idea that they are brought together to create excellence in their activities.

This metaphor is powerful; all students start at 14 years old and will have come from other schools. Thus, cultural imprinting starts from the first day and almost at the same time for the students. The metaphor is so strong such that there is a bond of camaraderie between students who have attended this school that extends across generational, political, social and economic levels. Source: http://www.doksinet Activities That Shape Context An important part of an organization’s culture is its reinforcement loop. An organization’s culture should have a mechanism to reinforce aspects of its culture, including its view of the past and the future. Not only should this reinforce the culture for people who have been with the organization for a time, but it is especially important to ‘bring into the culture’ the newcomers to the organization. Problem What kind of mechanism can we use to reinforce an organization’s culture? Forces • Patterns of behavior cannot simply be

manufactured or declared by fiat. People will not simply behave in accordance with the culture because you tell them so. However, it is possible to create and support an environment that encourages them to do so. • Creating a reinforcement loop will cost, in terms of time, money and physical resources. You cannot engage in reinforcing the culture ‘for free’ • The culture should be reinforced in a way that is not artificial or breaks the culture’s world view. It should be done as naturally as possible, so that the culture is reinforced subconsciously, in a “business as usual” fashion. Solution Create activities in the life of the organization so that people will interact with each other. Such activities may be meetings or gatherings, where social or professional interaction may take place. Or they may be opportunistic, such as ad-hoc discussions in the corridor Infuse these activities with elements from the culture; these activities should be an opportunity for people

in the organization to interact with each other, but they should also reinforce the culture in various ways. Weave elements of the culture (eg stories and metaphors) into these activities, so that the activity is not culture-neutral. Over time, these activities will become part of the culture themselves and further enrich it, in addition to building a sense of community. Support these activities with resources: allow people the time to participate in such activities, provide food and other materials that are needed, and tailor the environment for such activities to take place (e.g open spaces, coffee machines, whiteboards) Encourage these activities with in-principle support and allow them to happen with consistency. There are various approaches that can be used to encourage an organization to meet the costs and find resources to support activities, such as those outlined in Manns & Rising (2001). Source: http://www.doksinet Rationale Part of culture is not just things that

express the culture (such as the other patterns in this collection). Culture is also the things that you do, ergo the activities that you engage in We can couple the creation of cultural activities with the growth and dissemination of the culture. By creating opportunities for people in the organization to interact, we create opportunities for people in the organization to “rub each other” with the culture. Often, it is in these times of interaction that Stories that Bind are shared and Metaphors that Inspire are reinforced. Resulting context The activities in an organization’s culture are a powerful part of structuring and reinforcing the culturesignificantly, most of these activities are likely to be implicit, disseminating the culture akin to making people “breathe it in.” Thus, activities that become part of the culture can be pervasive, powerful conceptual artifacts. In this particular case, the activities that shape a culture are not always as explicit as Stories That

Bind, Metaphors That Inspire or Patterns That Document. While there may be touchstone activities that are very clear (e.g a company conference, Friday drinks at a certain pub), many activities are more subtle and implicit. This makes it more difficult to change the culture, if certain activities no longer seem appropriate to the organization’s culture. As with the other patterns in this set, the resulting context of this pattern will inevitably involve certain people in the organization feeling less able to relate to the culture of the organization. This is because the artifacts that have been created articulate the evolving culture more clearly, and therefore making the gap more distinct between those who fit with the culture, and those who do not. Related patterns Stories That Bind are shared and disseminated during activities. Metaphors That Inspire are shared and disseminated during activities. Patterns that Capture will ‘mine’ activities for recurring behaviors and

processes that are instances of activity patterns. Activities may also be used as part of the solution component of a pattern. Examples AG Communication Systems is an unusual company, in that it sponsors several specialinterest clubs for its employees: a flying club, a golf club, a tennis club, a volleyball club, and a music club, to name a few. The music club sponsors two variety shows a year and has produced major musical productions based on themes from the company’s history. All these provide ways for employees to interact but, more importantly, they choose activities they truly enjoy and, in a very real sense, take this joy back to their work. Source: http://www.doksinet DSTC is a large university-based IT research conglomerate in Australia. When it sets up branch offices in various locations, it will seek to install an expensive espresso coffee machine at that location. DSTC has seen that the activity of creating social traffic around the coffee machine is conducive to

creating interaction between staff members. This interaction encourages staff to meet each other – a challenge in an organization that is physically distributed, and whose work is typically desk-based– breaking down the isolation that may be typical in universities and IT-related organizations. The social traffic is also a catalyst for researchers to talk about what they are doing, leading to knowledge sharing and creation of new collaborative possibilities. Melbourne High School has a speech night at the conclusion of each school year. The event is a powerful cultural tool in the life of the school. It is held in the city’s large town hall, comprising academic awards, a comprehensive music program, and a speech by a famous past student of the school. Throughout the evening, each part of the program reinforces the school’s metaphor of itself as “crème de la crème” (see Metaphors That Inspire). The high point of the evening is the massed singing by the 1200 students who

attend the school, who will have been practicing for many weeks prior to the evening. The first year student is typically shaped in a profound way by this evening: he has participated in a ritual of rehearsal and execution of an event that every boy in the school has experienced, one that points to many other aspects of the school’s culture (e.g music, academic excellence, involvement in the community). After that, he knows that he is part of a distinctive group and culture. Source: http://www.doksinet Patterns That Capture Context Part of growing the culture more effectively is to distil and identify the essential elements of your culture. There is a drive to identify those recurring things in the way you do things, so these are not lost. Once you identify themonce we have a handle on them then we are able to ‘hack’ the organization, to actively and explicitly grow the culture in certain ways. This process can take place at any time; it is a reflective activity. As time

passes and the organization travels further along, its essence will become more likely to emerge and it will become more important to capture it. Problem How do you capture and express the essence of your organization’s culture? Forces • It is also difficult to get people to articulate what they think the culture is: it involves a stepping back and expressing it in a way that we are not used to doing on an everyday level. It is meta-level People usually think in concrete terms • What form does this expression take? There are many different ways to express what each of us think the essence of the culture is. It would be good to have a way of expressing the culture that is sufficiently general, but able to cater to the specific. Solution Patterns can be used as a way of capturing and documenting aspects of a culture that are running and recurring themes. Things that are good about a culture, the things about culture that an organization does well. By looking at the existing

conceptual artifacts that represent the organization’s culture stories, metaphors, and activitiesyou start identifying what patterns may run through the culture. Stories, in particular, are a good source for mining They can be used in tandem with patterns to illustrate the use of patterns, a powerful complementary approach. Rationale Patterns capture the essence of a solution and also offer a way of expressing that solution. In addition, they are designed to be reusable and generativetaking the results of capturing and documenting the culture, and feeding it into the activity of growing and modify the culture (shaping the organization by applying its patterns to itself). Patterns are good for capturing fundamental aspects of the culture because they make note of the various features of each aspect: namely in the components of each pattern, e.g Source: http://www.doksinet context, rationale, etc. In this way, they encourage a level of reflection and documentation that is more than

mere anecdotal speculation.3 Resulting context Identification of the patterns that drive the culture of an organization can create an environment of deeper and reflective understanding the organization. However, change does not automatically flow from this. The people in the organization must be able to identify with the patterns in the culture and understand what they mean. Because patterns are metalevel, people have difficulties understanding them. We tend to prefer dealing in concrete and specific things. It is likely that one needs to translate the patterns found into something that people can more easily relate to. While patterns of an organization’s culture can affect everyone, not everyone will find the content in each pattern immediately relevant to what they do. Thus, in the resulting context, organizational designers will be aided by patterns to better identify core elements of how the culture operates, and they should translate the content of patterns into language that

the people in the organization can understand. The impact on the culture and behavior of the organization is a function of the ability of the people in the organization to comprehend these patterns. As with the other patterns in this set, the resulting context of this pattern being applied will inevitably involve certain people in the organization feeling less able to relate to the culture of the organization. This is because the artifacts that have been created articulate the evolving culture more clearly, and therefore making the gap more distinct between those who fit with the culture, and those who do not. Related patterns Solutions arising from: • • • Stories That Bind Metaphors That Inspire Activities That Shape are mined to find what underlying patterns may exist. In turn, these patterns may be used as part of fundamental patterns that are part of the organizational culture. Examples AG Communication Systems had an extensive pattern mining effort. Classes in pattern

writing were taught and employees from different domains contributed patterns based on their experiences. Since everyone was encouraged to take part, everyone participated in 3 This is the subject of work by Manns & Rising (2001) to make explicit, the tacit experience and knowledge that comes out of organizations and cultures. In this case, it takes the perspective of introducing patterns (or new ideas) into organizations. Source: http://www.doksinet an evolving patterns culture. When a book was published about the experiences at this company (Rising 1998) and all pattern authors were mentioned by name (some with pictures), there was a clear sense that this company and the people in it were very special. Many companies intuitively look for recurring solutions, identify the core, attach a label to it, and apply it in new situations. They sometimes attach labels to these solutions So they have been using patterns in an informal and ad-hoc way. For example, Consulting Co. uses

various patterns implicitly to manage its growth in the competitive IT/business consulting marketplace. Patterns that are commonly applied include: 4 • Sell Now, Resource Later (bid for an assignment first and worry about resourcing later, only after the proposal has been won and a firm starting date is unknown).4 • Whiteboards Stimulate Discussion (ensure that whiteboards are plentiful, including small ones in cubicles, and situate discussions around them because they provide a large canvas for illustrating and expressing ideas) • QA Before It Goes Out (everyone in the company must get someone to QAquality assuretheir work before it is seen by a client. This encourages openness and accountability about one’s work, as well as a culture of quality.) May, D. & Taylor, P “Knowledge Management with Patterns”, Communications of the ACM, accepted for publication