Patterns for Things

In practice

Step one, an anchor thing, the center of a domain such as a Case or an Order: build its Pack early, at Silver or Gold. Step two, a supporting thing that exists because the anchor does, such as an Action Plan: say how its lifecycle relates to the anchor. Step three, a reference thing, such as a list of incident types: Bronze is usually enough. Step four, a snapshot thing, the state of something at a moment: make it a thing of its own, not copied fields. Step five, an event log thing: focus on who, what, when and why. Step six, a decision thing, carrying policy weight: Gold, with criteria, outcome, rationale and effective dates.