Conway's Law: When Best Practices Are Not Enough
summary
Claim: the org chart shapes the code. Cites a 2008 study of 50 million LOC across ~3,000 Vista modules where organizational structure predicts production bugs better than churn, complexity or test coverage. Shows a consulting website and a travel-ticket system that mirror team boundaries in the product, explains the inverse Conway maneuver as mitigation, and gives concrete practices — event storming, context map, Domain‑Driven Design and Team Topologies — plus references (microservices trend, Accelerate 2018) and when reorgs fail because the system itself is too rigid.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction to Conway's Law
- 6:26Entering the IT Zone
- 9:35Microsoft Vista Case Study
- 14:11Online Travel Company Architecture
- 18:11Conway's Original Insight
- 23:30Conway's Law Explained
- 31:27Conway's Law in Practice
- 34:37Inverse Conway Maneuver
- 36:03BAPO Model and Domain-Driven Design
- 44:11Team Topologies Approach
- 48:07Applying the Inverse Conway Maneuver
- 49:55Conclusion and Final Advice
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