Agile Software Development in the Large: Diving Into the Deep

5. Agility and Technology

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 ...