Function follows form

“Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations” - Conway’s law

In other words, the structure of an organization’s teams drives the structure of the products and services they design.

On the surface this law seems obvious to the point of being inane. but knowing the law and adressing it in the design process are two drastically differently things.

When we say what we design reflects the structure of the organization, we are just saying the final input (service, interface, process) aligns with th needs of the organizational units. We are saying that the entire lifecycle of the products and services:

• User definition

• Issue/opportunity definition

• Solution development

• Feature prioritization

• Design and build process

• Communications

• Change management

• Support

• Maintenance/enhancements

• Consumption

reflect the organizational structure and culture. Team organized by technical capability tend to produce business solutions with technical silos. Cross functional teams working within business units tend to build products and services with distributed architecture but business function silos.

Should teams be organized to reflect the solution architecture we want to see?

When we talk about user-centric people first design, it doesn’t just mean we design products and services that people like to use. it means we explore the holistic experience of the people involved in all facets of design, production, and consumption of the product or service. Research that seeks to understand the organizational culture and flows of work and information is critical to ensure solutions are intentionally crafted to move the organization toward an optimal target structure.