Antipatterns are common practices that initially appear to be beneficial, but ultimately result in bad consequences that outweigh hoped-for advantages. The term, coined in 1995 by programmer Andrew Koenig, was inspired by a book, ‘Design Patterns,’ in which the authors highlighted a number of practices in software development that they considered to be highly reliable and effective.
The term was popularized three years later by the book ‘AntiPatterns,’ which extended its use beyond the field of software design and into general social interaction and may be used informally to refer to any commonly reinvented but bad solution to a problem. Examples include analysis paralysis (over-analyzing a situation while indefinitely delaying making a decision), cargo cult programming (the ritual inclusion of code that serves no real purpose), death march (pressing ahead on a project members feel is destined to fail), groupthink (a desire for harmony in the group results in an irrational decision-making outcome), and vendor lock-in (preventing customers from seeking alternatives).
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The Daily Omnivore 