Firewalls

Problem: Project implementors are often distracted by outsiders who feel a need to offer input and criticism.

Context:

An organization of developers has formed, in a corporate or social context where they are scrutinized by peers, funders, customers, and other "outsiders."

Forces:

Isolationism doesn't work: information flow is important.

Communication overhead goes up non-linearly with the number of external collabor ators.

Many interruptions are noise.

Maturity and progress are more highly correlated with being in control than being control

Solution:

Create a Manager role, who shields other development personnel from interaction with external roles. The responsibility of this role is "to keep the pests away."

Resulting Context:

The new organization isolates developers from extraneous external interrupts. To avoid isolationism, this pattern must be tempered with others, such as Engage Customers and Gatekeeper.

Design Rationale:

QPW, ATT1.

See also the pattern Engage Customers, which complements this pattern.

Gatekeeper is a pattern that facilitates effective flow of useful information; Firewalls restricts flow of detracting information.

Sun Tzu notes: "He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign."

Next: Gatekeeper