Conway's Law

ELI5 — The Vibe Check

Conway's Law says your software architecture will mirror your org chart. Three teams? You'll end up with three services. Frontend team and backend team? You'll get a clear frontend-backend split. It's scarily accurate. Want to change your architecture? Change your team structure first.

Real Talk

Conway's Law states that organizations design systems that mirror their communication structures. A system's architecture tends to reflect the organizational boundaries of the teams that built it. This insight drives the 'Inverse Conway Maneuver' — deliberately structuring teams to produce the desired architecture.

When You'll Hear This

"Conway's Law explains why our monolith has three distinct sections — we had three teams." / "We restructured teams around domains, and the architecture naturally followed."