Part of every profession is the jargon practitioners adopt. Having a language links people together and creates a sense of community. It also creates private gardens; a profession walled off from those around it. Jargon is a form of secret handshake. Recently, I (yes, I am the villain in this story) had a conversation with a Scrum Master. We discussed how to use questions and I used the terms “patterns” and “anti-patterns”. It quickly became apparent that they had never heard the terms before, at least in the context of agile and software development. I quickly asked around, all of my coaching friends understood the terms, but they made sense to very few friends outside my coaching circle.
Patterns, in software development (including agile), refer to well-established, reusable solutions to common problems. Scrum is a pattern. SAFe is a pattern. Clean language is a pattern. The factory method is a common design pattern. An antipattern is a recurring practice that leads to problems in the long run. Using proxy owners is an antipattern. Daily Scrums that happen once or twice a week is an antipattern. Adopting new patterns generally requires organization and behavioral change. Alternately adopting antipatterns are quick fixes or shortcuts that seem efficient or expeditious initially.
Returning briefly to my conversation on question patterns and antipatterns. Consider if a manager asked a team member “Do you agree with my policy to work on production issues because they could relate to human life and safety?” The question is loaded and not psychologically safe. The only safe answer is yes. Loaded questions are an antipattern. If the manager intends to make the team member say yes publicly then the approach will more than likely be effective. HOWEVER, in the long run, that form of manipulation will have an impact on the team.
A comparison of a few basic attributes of patterns and antipatterns suggests why patterns are used to drive behaviors and also why people stray to the dark side and adopt antipatterns.
- Patterns improve the design of code, process, architecture, and leadership while antipatterns worsen it.
- Patterns are deliberately designed solutions and antipatterns are often unintentional results of bad or expeditious practices.
- Patterns often have documented, better alternatives, alternately, antipatterns lack established solutions.
- Patterns are generally viewed as beneficial while antipatterns are discouraged.
Evaluating techniques, frameworks, reusable design, and more into patterns and antipatterns is a useful shortcut when deciding on a course of action. Knowing which approaches to behavior, architecture, or code have been effective in the long term reduces waste. Knowing which stink provides value also. The knowledge also allows practitioners to spend more time considering context so they choose wisely.
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The terms pattern and antipattern are a form of verbal shorthand for all of these concepts. They are jargon. If you are trying to communicate with someone and you use jargon they do not understand or unpack into different concepts you have a failure to communicate.
