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Conway’s Law

Conway’s law is an adage stating that organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. It is named after computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967. In summary, any organization process you design reflects their communication structure.

Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.

Melvin E. Conway

It’s interesting to observe organizations and teams’ function in the context of Conway’s Law. James Clear in his book titled Atomic Habits says, “You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” I believe this is true for organizations as well. Could we assert that developing and instilling effective communication structures, improves internal processes and systems?