The Sticky Pattern

This page is a part of Design Patterns.

Its content is derived from the presentation "Building a Hacker Space" by Jens Ohlig and Lars Weiler.

Sustainability Patterns	Independence Patterns	Regularity Patterns	Conflict Resolution Patterns	Creative Chaos Patterns
Infrastructure Grace Hopper Community Critical Mass Strong Personalities Charitable Member	Landlord and Neighbourhood Anti-Roommate Séparée Kitchen Coziness Shower Membership Fees Anti-Sponsoring	Plenum Tuesday Sticky OpenChaos U23 Sine Curve	Consensus Democracy Command sudo Responsibility Debate Culture Anti-Bikeshed Private Talk Spooky Action Anti-Pattern	Old Hardware Key Club Mate The Library Pattern Flat Surface

Problem

You use The Plenum Pattern, but not everyone turns up regularly, such that you have too few participants to make a sound or actionable decision at any one time.

Implementation

Make your topic sticky across multiple regular meetings, so that people attending less frequently can contribute to it, until enough input is received.

Use cases

• Accumulate a quorum of votes on a motion (see Democracy), by voting over multiple meetings without everyone getting together at once. The motion can stick around for a minimum period (e.g. four Tuesdays), and then until either a quorum is reached, or a maximum period, or the group decides to cancel it.
• Spread heavy discussion topics over multiple meetings to prevent them from overwhelming any single meeting. As well as allowing more people to have a say, it may permit time for people to reflect/research and arrive at a conclusion. (note from jabelone/Hackerspace Brisbane we only allow brief discussion during meetings. All discussion should happen on the forum. We found this works well for us.)
• Co-ordinate almost anything within a group that rotates often between regular meetings. For example, when on-boarding new members, they may be asked to stick around for perhaps four Tuesdays before being fully registered, in order to allow them and enough others to bump into each other. This may help with member orientation and group continuity.