Making the Case for the Right Organizational Structure

Using Conway's Law to think about your organizational chart

The Brief Case 📚→💼→📈→📊

“Organizations, who design systems, are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.”

-Melvin Conway

Take a minute to really think about “Conway’s Law.” Software developers certainly have. They sometimes offer it as a warning.

Because it is such a powerful law, so the warning goes, software companies often ship products that are direct reflections of their organizational charts. This implicit bias can cause products to reflect hierarchies and power structures within companies rather than the needs of users outside companies. Web designers struggle with — and sling about — Conway, too. Website hierarchies often reflect company organizational charts which then delimit the potential of company websites.

Whether we know it or not, we are all probably living some version of Conway’s Law.