Conway's law

Conway's law holds that organizations which design systems produce designs that copy their communication structures, a idea Melvin Conway introduced in 1967. The law is based on the reasoning that components must be compatible, so the technical structure of a system reflects the social boundaries across which communication is harder. Evidence cited includes a study by MIT and Harvard Business School researchers, who found "strong evidence to support the mirroring hypothesis" and that the product from the loosely-coupled organization was significantly more modular than that from the tightly-coupled one. The article notes that opinions on whether this mirroring is desirable vary.