56a: Conway's Law Still Holds True After Decades

I used to think designing systems and architectures started within the team. Engineers in the team usually don’t have a holistic picture of the organization, and they design systems with their best intentions and using their understanding of constraints. After reading Team Topologies, I learned—or let’s say, enlightened—that designing systems starts from designing teams; as Conway’s Law states, “Organizations are destined to create software constrained by how teams communicate with each other.” Before reading it, I thought that software engineering leaders didn’t have to be technical because leadership is not a technical job. However, the same leaders create organizational structures and, therefore, decide how the architecture of systems will be shaped. Now I think they have to have a technical background to understand how their decision will reflect on the system design. Or they have a technical person on the table while designing the organization.

• Related Note(s):
  • 19c: How to move faster in organizations;
  • 42b: Systems and Design Thinking;
  • 48: System Design Index;
  • 10: Individual Contributor or Manager;
  • 12: Engineer Autonomy;
  • 31: Accountability and Learning Culture in Organizations;
  • 34: Clarity in Organizations;
  • 37: Setting Organizational Goals and Processes;
• Source(s): Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais;

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