Pattern: Buddy System

BUDDY SYSTEM

The buddy system is a social pattern to establish a deeper iterpersonal connections amongs people, by working on something together.

The idea is inspired from pair programming, where two people work together on a programming assignment. Although this results in higher costs in man-hours, the advantages of pair programming are significant, yielding higher focus, quality, relevance, morale, efficiency and establishing a much more enjoyable collaborative environment.

For any task, a person finds a Buddy, that is, someone to do it with.

During the time they work together, the buddies will discuss how to tackle the task, and entertain any conversations that they deem relevant.

During co-creation, it is advised to keep track of any interesting topics, conclusions, and realizations that might arise.
These can be shared in the forum using the DiaLOG category so that information and conclusions can be reached and build upon by other members.

Mutual Attestation

The buddy system is not only a good way to get to know a person and get to learn from each other, but it can also serve as task validation.

The buddy system does not rely on a command and control for tasks, rather on a peer-to-peer attestation network, where each buddy validates on the relevance of the task, the quality of the task and of each other’s contribution.

In case there will be any rewards to be assigned for performing the tasks (eg: TIME tokens), they will be divided equally between the buddies.
Therefore, each buddy has the responsibility of co-creating as an equal contributor (eg: we built this), or to share the load equally (eg: we did the dishes).

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