Conway's Law

Named after early computer science pioneer Melvin Conway, who stated

"Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce systems which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations."

Put more simply, software will look like the development team. If the team is smart and fast, so too will the the software. If the team is heavy on architects, but poor on visual designers, the software will be well planned, but hard to use, etc.

This bit of jargon has been viewed 7,009 times.

Return To Laws and Adages Jargon