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Laws of Agile - Conway's Law

More Laws of Agile, today is everyone's favourite, Conway's Law. “Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.”


I have certainly experienced and witnessed this one but why is this a problem?  A study by MacCormack, Carliss, and Rusnak at Harvard verified that a loosely coupled organization produced a software design whose components were less tightly coupled than designs produced by a more traditional tightly structured organization.

Tightly coupled components are typically single purpose, highly dependent and not easily reusable. This means harder to diversify, pivot, enhancements and maintenance are more costly.

To start to understand how to overcome Conway's Law this article on The Inverse Conway Maneuver is a good place to start.




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