Organizational structure shouldn’t necessarily dictate how content is delivered.

Melvin Conway introduced Conway’s Law in 1967, it states:

“Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.”

This observation has become increasingly prescient over the years as software continues to dominate our lives. And as more organizations seek to produce their own software. How are internal organizational structures affecting how companies deliver content, product, and all types of communications to customers?

Organizations that understand Conway’s Law, and who seek to mitigate it’s potential negative impacts, appear to be seeing their investments pay off in big ways. Whereas organization’s who don’t understand it, or don’t consider the lessons to be learned from it, often struggle.