Conway’s Law

Conway’s law is an adage named after computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967. It states that

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

— M. Conway

The law is based on the reasoning that in order for a software module to function, multiple authors must communicate frequently with each other. Therefore, the software interface structure of a system will reflect the social boundaries of the organization(s) that produced it, across which communication is more difficult. Conway’s law was intended as a valid sociological observation, although sometimes it’s taken in a humorous context.

Shalloway’s Corollary to Conway’s Law: When development groups change how their development staff are organized, their current application architecture will work against them.