

How a beautiful software system becomes Frankenstein - mightybyte
http://softwarecreation.org/2008/how-a-beautiful-software-system-becomes-frankenstein/

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randrews
"Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which
are copies of the communication structures of these organizations."

Is that really true? Couldn't it be the other way around? If I am designing a
module that doesn't talk to Bill's module, then I have no real need to
communicate with Bill, right?

I'd guess it's more that the communication structure of an organization
mirrors the structure of what they're designing.

~~~
skmurphy
This is known as Conway's Law. Communication problems in a development
organization manifest in the designs it produces (an N programmer compiler
team needs an N+1 pass compiler). There is also a great passage from "Soul of
the Machine" where the Data General guys open up the Vax and see the computer
hardware design replicates DEC's organizational structure.

[http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-
Kidder/dp/03807...](http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-
Kidder/dp/038071115X)

from "How Do Committees Invent?" by Melvin E. Conway at
<http://www.melconway.com/research/committees.html>

The basic thesis of this article is that organizations which design systems
(in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are
copies of the communication structures of these organizations. We have seen
that this fact has important implications for the management of system design.
Primarily, we have found a criterion for the structuring of design
organizations: a design effort should be organized according to the need for
communication.

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edw519
Very insightful article. Interesting that he never mentions standards. Failure
to adhere to standards is a BIG source of problems.

(Of course, the only good standards are the ones that I make.)

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kirubakaran
How a beautiful software system becomes " _Dr.Frankenstein's monster_ "

