PM World Journal Thinking in Patterns: Problems, Solutions and Strategies Vol. V, Issue XI – November 2016 Prof Darren Dalcher www.pmworldjournal.net Series Article © 2016 Darren Dalcher www.pmworldlibrary.net Page 1 of 6 Advances in Project Management Series 1 Thinking in Patterns: Problems, Solutions and Strategies By Prof Darren Dalcher Director, National Centre for Project Management University of Hertfordshire, UK Humans have long been fascinated with patterns in nature and in socially constructed work and cultural environments. Consequently, the abilities to identify patterns and make sense of reality have been highly prized. British philosopher, Social and political theorist, Sir Isaiah Berlin highlighted the central role of patterns: “The pattern, and it alone, brings into being and causes to pass away and confers purpose, that is to say, value and meaning, on all there is. To understand is to perceive patterns. (…) To make intelligible is to reveal the basic pattern. ” (p. 129) Patterns are regular and intelligible forms or sequences that are discernible in the way that events unfold, or that something happens or is done. Patterns can thus be described as perceptible regularities in nature or in manmade (artificial) designs. The Pattern Movement Christopher Alexander, an influential, albeit controversial, architect and design theorist advanced the study of patterns over a series of books documenting his observations on the relationship between form and function and the art of design. In Notes on the Synthesis of the Form, Alexander defines the process of design as “the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function”. Alexander explains that form is adapted to the context of human needs and demands that has called it into being. However, the search is for creating a kind of harmony between a form, which is yet to be designed, and a context, which cannot be properly described. The adaptive process proceeds in a gradual, piecemeal fashion allowing an organic design. The form is moulded not by designers, but by the slow patterns of changes, which avoid the traps of premature preconception of ideas. This allows designers to create new concepts out of the structure of the problem, 1 The PMWJ Advances in Project Management series includes articles by authors of program and project management books previously published by Gower in the UK and now by Routledge. Each month an introduction to the current article is provided by series editor Prof Darren Dalcher, who is also the editor of the Gower/Routledge Advances in Project Management series of books on new and emerging concepts in PM. To learn more about the book series, go to https://www.routledge.com/Advances-in-Project-Management/book-series/APM. Prof Dalcher’s article is an introduction to the invited paper this month in the PMWJ.