This is the primary mechanism for capturing core-competency knowledge, and uses the students to analyze and describe the feature and underlying principles of an existing highly adaptable system. Typically, the original designers of these existing systems employ techniques that they are unable to articulate to others sufficient for duplicating the expertise. Here is the crux of the workshop. The problem being attacked may well have been worked on by prior workshop groups who failed to gain an implementation recommendation. The workshop group is broken into small teams when possible in order to have multiple perspectives vie for group appreciation.
Mentors schedule periodic group reviews and provide process guidance.
They remain employed at a reduced time-commitment in their normal job function during this period. This activity culminates when the group, with mentor guidance, agrees upon a comprehensive design approach and is ready to package the result as a metaphor model. It is both a descriptive discipline and an effective insight conveyance tool. Individuals may be mentors in one workshop and students in another. We cannot let the fact that we have students developing new knowledge result in a random process.