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Conway's Law

en.wikipedia.org

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Re: Conway's Law

#31

Post by dx034 »

KevanM wrote: post #21
sz4kerto wrote: post #2

"organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." I'd say that organizations are not just constrained to do that -- they should. When you design systems and infrastructure, keep in mind that systems and solutions are under evolutionary pressure, and engineers have to change it all the time. When optimizing for change, y…

What if the communication structures are poorly designed and you are building a system on top of an organisation that is struggling to communicate effectively? The project leadership might hope that building a new system will be able change the communication problem. This suggests that it will only compound the problem.

If the company knows that communication structures are poorly designed, the first priority should be to fix those. Fixing those first will probably have a higher impact on productivity.

Re: Conway's Law

#34

Post by hinkley »

cateye wrote: post #20

I feel old when these kind of Wikipedia pages make it to the front page and I was assuming that it was known and obvious for everyone.

Can I interest you in a copy of the Mythical Man Month?

Re: Conway's Law

#35

Post by notabee »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #16

What do you build when everyone talks to each other over Slack?

The medium likely doesn't matter nearly as much as all the irrational human tribal boundaries. Trying to fix those with technological solutions is kind of the fundamental error.

Re: Conway's Law

#38

Post by yacse »

If it is one thing that I have learned at a large software company it is the fact that Conway's Law is fundamentally true. Any software system is a mirror of the team setup and the interactions between the involved people. And many bugs are found in the interfaces/interactions between components of isolated teams.

However, this also means that as a software developer you are unable, or at least very constrained, in the ability to improve or refactor any complex legacy system. You are basically fighting uphill battles in such situations, because you are not in the authority to change/improve the organizational structure.

This also means that as programmers we may need to take more time and care to invest in human relationships and in our communication skills, as this could have an significant effect on code and product quality.

Re: Conway's Law

#39

Post by rumcajz »

tialaramex wrote: post #24

It's maybe interesting to consider Conway's Law in respect of the systems designed by IETF Working Groups (as distinct from the wider scope of systems that have an RFC but were designed wholly outside the IETF or brought to the IETF largely finished for just a bit of spit and polish) Whether the IETF is an organisation per se is a fun question in itself of course since it has no membership. It is clearly an activity,…

I think this may be one of the reasons for IETF's success. Compare with, for example, 3GPP standards. The fact that each WG does a single task and is disabanded early means, according to Conway's law, that individual RFCs will be relatively independent.

Re: Conway's Law

#40

Post by k6hkUZtLUM »

I often see this in the company webpages. Does a college organize for new students? By division? Department? You can tell a lot about the college culture based on how the website is organized!
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