Melvin Conway
Computer scientist; his 1968 paper How Do Committees Invent? gave the observation known as Conway's law, that organisations design systems that copy their communication structures.
From the paper How Do Committees Invent?12 korrents
Cited by Mitchell HashimotoSee it on the map
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Their wordsTherefore, there is no such thing as a design group which is both organized and unbiased.
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Their wordsIt is an article of faith among experienced, system designers that given any system design, someone someday will find a better one to do the same job.
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Their wordsTo the extent that an organization is not completely flexible in its communication structure, that organization will stamp out an image of itself in every design it produces.
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Their wordsThe larger an organization is, the less flexibility it has and the more pronounced is the phenomenon.
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Their wordsFrom experience we know that the two men, if they are well chosen and survive the experience, will give us a better system. Assumptions which may be adequate for peeling potatoes and erecting brick walls fail for designing systems.
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Their wordsAs long as the manager's prestige and power are tied to the size of his budget, he will be motivated to expand his organization.
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Their wordsProbably the greatest single common factor behind many poorly designed systems now in existence has been the availability of a design organization in need of work.
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Their wordsThis is one reason why military-style organizations design systems which look like their organization charts.
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Their wordsThe 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.
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Their wordsPrimarily, 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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Their wordsBecause the design which occurs first is almost never the best possible, the prevailing system concept may need to change. Therefore, flexibility of organization is important to effective design.
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Their wordsThere is need for a philosophy of system design management which is not based on the assumption that adding manpower simply adds to productivity.
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