Reckoning with the force of Conway's Law

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

Thoughtworks

Careers, Business, 907234, Technology

4.7 • 53 Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While putting together this year's Technology Radar, Conway's Law — the idea that organizations are constrained to produce systems that mirror their communication structures — was the subject of a lot of discussion. Should we fight it — by deploying the inverse conway maneuver? Or do we need to adopt a more nuanced approach and consider how we can leverage it?

In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Martin Fowler and James Lewis join hosts Birgitta Böckeler and Mike Mason to delve into Conway's Law. They explore what Conway's Law means for organizations today, how it should — and should not — be applied and why everyone working in and around software systems needs to pay close attention to it.

Read the 1968 paper (by Melvin Conway) that identified the phenomenon.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the ThoughtWorks Technology Podcast. My name is Begeta Bockela. I'm a technical
0:08.9	principal with ThoughtWorks out of Berlin, Germany. And I'm co-hosting this episode with Mike Mason.
0:15.1	Hi, Begita. Nice to be with you today. And today we actually want to talk about Conway's Law.
0:22.1	When we recently got together to create the new addition of the technology radar,
0:26.3	we had a conversation about Conway's Law and the inverse Conway maneuver in particular
0:30.5	and the experiences we've all had with that and applying these ideas over the years.
0:36.8	And to talk to us about Conway's Law and the inverse Conway maneuver today are our colleagues
0:43.4	Martin Fowler and James Lewis.
0:45.6	Martin, can you introduce yourself and maybe briefly mention what your relation to this topic is?
0:51.8	Well, I'm Martin Fowler.
0:53.8	My relation to this topic is I've been working in software for decades.
0:58.9	So Conway's Law has been a constant companion to me.
1:04.0	And then James?
1:06.0	Hey, I'm James Lewis. I'm, as Begita says, a colleague of everyone here.
1:12.6	And I've been interested in Commonwealth's Law from the perspective of how to best
1:18.9	or more effectively structure teams for flow.
1:23.5	So to effectively get stuff done, essentially.
1:29.0	And then I'd say we'd best start with maybe clarifying what we mean by Conway's law, right?
1:34.7	So James, do you want to give it a stab and quote the definition?
1:39.9	Oh, I'm not even sure if I can remember the definition.
1:42.3	I think Martin's probably got that off pat.
1:45.2	So, Mars, could you give that again?
	...

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