Выражение встречается в следующем контексте:
His career has combined the practice of software development with reflection, innovation, and communication. His contributions to software development include patterns for software, the rediscovery of test-first programming, the xUnit family of developer testing tools, and Extreme Programming.

Заранее спасибо

...a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations.

общая схема решения типичной проблемы в разработке программного обеспечения