Overview of the Plan

Up until now, Oslec Software has used patterns in only an ad hoc and isolated manner; for instance, they have previously used Model-View-Controller (MVC) when building their applications. There has also been some use of some of the GoF design patterns. However, this usage has not been systematic or disciplined. When patterns are used, it is an uncoordinated, individual decision, and no rigor is applied to determining the impact of using the patterns. In addition, because of varied skill levels across the team, they’ve seen inconsistent results related to the application of patterns. Automation has not yet played any role in their pattern efforts, and culturally patterns are not promoted.

As this is the first PBE-based project, the team does not yet have a repository of patterns that they can consult and leverage. The project itself will follow an Agile iterative and incremental approach, and one of the priorities is to build out their PBE capabilities in each iteration; that is, they will not be taking a big-bang approach to the adoption. Instead, within each iteration they will adopt as much as is realistic and worthwhile. By the end of the project, the goal is that they will have substantially increased their capabilities to use patterns. Then, on further projects, they can continue to build on this base and incrementally build out additional capabilities.