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Committees Paper (Conway's Law)

melconway.com · 3,684 words · saved by 1 readers

Author's note 42 years after publication: Perhaps this paper's most remarkable feature is that it made it to publication with its thesis statement in the third-last paragraph. To save you the trouble of wading through 45 paragraphs to find the thesis, I'll give an informal version of it to you now: Any organization that designs a system (defined more broadly here than just information systems) will inevitably produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure. This turns out to be a principle with much broader utility than in software engineering, where references to it usually occur. I invite you to read the paper, then look around to find applications. My current favorite is the complex of social issues encompassing poverty in America: access to labor markets, housing, education, and health care. After reading the paper, think about how the structures of our various governments affect their approaches to this system. A pdf file of the paper in it

Committees Paper Author's note 42 years after publication: Perhaps this paper's most remarkable feature is that it made it to publication with its thesis statement in the third-last paragraph. To save you the trouble of wading through 45 paragraphs to find the thesis, I'll give an informal version of it to you now: Any organization that designs a system (defined more broadly here than just information systems) will inevitably produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure. This turns out to be a principle with much broader utility than in software engi

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