For reference (as per Wikipedia):
Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.
— Melvin E. Conway
Imagine interpreting that as advice on how you should try to design things, lol.
Tbf, I think most of the post is just typical LinkedIn fluff, but I didn’t want to take the poor fellow out of context.
The original post advocates for a holistic, collaborative approach; management and technical experts should be working together to align technical and organizational structure. I fully agree with that view (and I’m not a manager).
There is more than enough “shit managers say” material out there, but this is not it.
Totally fair, and I’m actually pretty happy to see someone steelman the LinkedIn guy’s point. Surprisingly thoughtful discussion here for a meme sub, lol.
I still think most of his post is pretty vapid (“org structure and technology should both support business goals,” yeah duh), but the content isn’t really objectionable… He’s just kind of… not saying much, I think. That’s what I meant by “LinkedIn fluff.”
What makes me smirk is invoking (and IMO, misunderstanding) Conway’s Law, although that was more an issue with the comic than the post (he talks about “Conway’s Law” directly in the comments, but I didn’t post those).
The takeaway from Conway’s Law isn’t supposed to be “when you’re deciding how to architect a software system, make sure to conform to the org structure.” It’s that the system structure will tend to mimic the communication structure (and possibly vice-versa), which may be good or bad, and you need to manage that tendency.
It’s certainly not “managers are the real software architects,” lol.
Thanks for your perspective. I wonder what your opinion of the comic part is?
Nowhere in that text does it say “managers are the real software architects”. What it does say is “what managers do affects software architecture”. Sure you can extrapolate that to delusions of grandeur, but if you take into account the explicit call for collaboration it is much more likely what was meant is more along the lines of “we can mess things up if we ignore the architecture, so let’s talk to the real software architects before making org decisions”.
About the comic: That one does have the line “management designs software architecture”, much closer to the negative interpretation; but that too can be interpreted in a more positive way as “… and we are not good at that, so let’s make sure to bring in the people who are good at it at important points”.
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Totally 👍I’d take it even a step further to say that he doesn’t even mention managers (or any other role) in the text-- It’s the comic that states that, as you say. It’s debatable to what extent the comic and the text should be read as one unit, but I think it’s fair to contextualize them together.
If you’re right about the intent-- i.e. to say “let’s make sure to bring in the people who are good at architecture–” then I think at best, it’s poorly articulated. It’d an odd move to post a comic that elevates his role and then not mention those people at all, right? Instead, he makes vague calls to “collaborate” and “align,” which many people hear as “schedule meetings and do manager stuff,” and then imply that that’s how software gets architected, because… Conway’s Law?
I still think it’s nice of you to try to interpret it charitably, though. I imagine if we shared this thread with this manager, he probably wouldn’t double down on how, no, really, Management are the real architects! He’d more likely pivot to echo much of what you’ve said, perhaps pretending that that was what he was saying all along.
Then we’d be free to argue about Conway’s Law for the rest of the thread.
So I don’t wholly disagree with your point, but even if I take that context at face value it still comes off as “ hey if your orgs are designed in perfect harmony w/ your objectives, your product will meet those objectives”.
Sure that’s logical as far as it goes, but it’s pretty much never the case in practice that you have a context that’s actually optimized to needs like that.
I feel like the subtext the post doesn’t say explicitly is that most management structure are not setup this way and thus software projects end up with a non-optimal design.
That is pretty much a given. Why else write about it at all?
I read it similar, but also kind of from the other side: If your organization is set up in a way that ignores the technical requirements of the product, your are going to have a bad time.
And yes, of course this is more often on the bad side than on the good side in practice. If everything was already fine most of the time, there would be no point in discussing this topic.
Yes, it is.
Basically he’s trying to frame something obvious and well out of his control as something he did. Which is typical manager behavior.
You don’t claim to be an expert farmer just because the apple tree in your garden, that’s twice as old as you are, happens to grow an apple.
This is illusion of grandeur in action.
I think what we can all agree on is that collaboration between the tree and the farmer is really what allows the apples to thrive. Conway’s Law tells us that the tree must conform to the habits of the farmer in order for fruit production to flourish, because ultimately, it’s the farmer who drives fruit production.
A holistic, collaborative approach to apple farming creates an environment conducive to fast fruit growth, a critical factor in today’s dynamic agricultural landscape.
So you see, it’s really the farmer who is growing the apple-- The tree is merely a socio-agricultural conduit.