Bob welcomed Steve Berczuk, and the gathering of 17 would-be participants and
onlookers. Steve is a design patterns expert who is also experienced in running writers
workshops, which are proven to be effective in past PLoP conferences and which he
recommends we use in our planned series of workshops.
After a round of introductions, Bob explained that he aims to resolve all the
outstanding Change Request issues following the close of the formal review period for our
"Technical Guide to Security Design Patterns". We hope to be able to publish it
as Version 1 by the end of August. The existing company review draft is available to
members (see Links below).
Bob went on to explain that we plan to test the completeness and fitness for purpose of
the design patterns in this document, by holding "writers workshops" to review
the definitions. These writers workshops will generate feedback on their usability and
veracity, so providing information that we will incorporate into the next version. It is
our intention to attract design pattern experts to these writers workshops to assure we
get high-quality feedback. We plan to run two writers workshops in each of our next two
meetings - Washington, DC (20-24 Oct 2003) and San Diego (2-6 Feb 2004).
Steve Berczuk then proceeded to describe how to run an effective design patterns
writers workshop, first explaining how it uses a central group of up to eight reviewer
participants, plus the pattern author and a moderator. This group sits in a circle. The
onlookers may listen but not speak unless invited by the moderator, and in general the
audience will only be invited to comment at the end of the workshop.
Each workshop takes about one hour. Its structure is:
- Introduction/reading - the moderator introduces the author and the author reads a
selection from his design pattern. This is the last we hear from the author until the end.
Allow 5 minutes.
- Summary - one of the workshop participants summarizes their impression of the intent of
the paper. Allow 5 minutes.
- Positive feedback - the moderator asks for things the participants liked about the
pattern. Comments can be about the presentation or the content, and at the discretion of
the moderator comments about presentation can be intermingled or handled separately. Allow
15 minutes.
- Constructive criticism - the moderator asks for ways in which the paper can be improved,
both in content and presentation. Allow 20-25 minutes.
- Author feedback - the author asks for clarification on comments made during the session.
The author should pick on the most important points or ones made by more than one
participant. Further clarification can be pursued in off-line discussion. Allow 10
minutes.
- Close - the workshop participants thank the author.
Steve and Bob had selected the "Checkpointed System" pattern as the sample
design pattern for review in this meeting. It appears in Section 7.2 of the Company Review
draft of the Security Design Patterns Guide (pages 31 through 33). This draft is available
to members (see Links below.)
In preparation for this workshop, Steve and Bob explained that reviewer participants
and the audience should have read the pattern carefully, read pages 6 and 7 of the
Patterns Guide to remind themselves what to look for in a good pattern, and prepare three
types of comments - a summary in their own words of what the pattern is about, things they
like in the pattern, and suggestions for improvement.
Steve and Bob then selected a group of five participants to join them in the
reviewer-participant circle, and proceeded to demonstrate the process by running a
practice writers workshop as a tutorial, using the selected pattern, with Bob as the
author and himself as the moderator. Steve broke out of his moderator role occasionally to
handle queries and steer the participants (and occasionally the less-than-quiet audience
of onlookers) back onto the right track.
At the end of the tutorial demonstration, Steve and Bob handled further observations
before Steve had to leave.
Bob closed the session with a vote of thanks to Steve which all endorsed.
Understanding of the Design Patterns writers workshop process, through presentation of
its rationale and demonstration/observation in a tutorial.
In addition, Bob gathered useful feedback on how well the existing draft of the
Checkpointed System design pattern is defined, along with some significant improvement
points which he will apply when preparing the pre-publication corrections to the Technical
Guide to Security Design Patterns.
