July 2013
Intermediate to advanced
246 pages
6h 9m
English
An independent architect shouldn’t be guided by sensations, but by reflections.
—Hans Scharoun
M.E. Conway formulated a law in 1968, in an article he wrote for Datamation. The law is now widely known as Conway’s Law:
Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce systems which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.1
1 Melvin E. Conway, “How Do Committees Invent?” Datamation, Vol. 14, No. 4 (April 1968), p. 28.
This law has been taken even further by several unknown authors:2
2 These statements can be found at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki7ConwaysLaw.
• The architecture of a system is a copy of the architecture of the organization.
• The structure of a system is determined by the structure ...