CB.1:1 - Problem frame

Use this pattern when you want to help a practice spread, enable people to help one another, or create a place where a particular group can participate meaningfully, and the useful contribution is still unclear. A professional association proposes a forum; a neighbourhood organiser proposes a shared activity; a sponsor offers a platform. Before building the arrangement, determine whose situation it should improve and why this arrangement could do so.

Community Building covers both the development of people who carry a practice and the formation or continuation of relationships among participants. This pattern governs the choice of a contribution within that broad field. Its immediate subject is a proposed change in people’s practice, participation or relationships and the arrangement that could support that change. People can adopt a practice without communicating with one another. Where mutual participation matters, its contribution needs an explanation of its own.

The first useful result is a bounded, understandable proposal: who could benefit, what would become possible, what participants and organisers would contribute, what conditions must hold, and which first action could test the proposal. A justified choice to use an existing service, improve access to a useful resource, or leave an adequate arrangement alone is also a result.

The intended user knows the activity in question or can obtain a qualified account from someone who does. This pattern helps organise a contribution; the activity’s own professional methods supply correctness and specialist permissions.

Ordinary non-use. If an existing proposal already fits the people, purpose and conditions and the remaining difficulty is obtaining a first exchange, use CB.2. If one person needs help choosing a learning programme, use HCD.2. Return here when the proposed community activity itself may be the wrong response.