On the DNA of Companies
(or) How I’ll never shut up about Conway’s Law
In 1967 computer programmer Melvin Conway wrote a paper called “How Do Committees Invent?” The thesis of his paper was later quoted and made famous by Fred Brooks in the software development book The Mythical Man-Month.
Brooks dubbed Melvin’s thesis “Conway’s Law”:
Organizations that design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
In other words, the things we make are a reflection of how we make them, especially the ways that the people involved communicate with one another. The what is constrained by the how. The process constrains the product.
Of all the pithy business maxims and so-and-so’s laws that get repeated in LinkedIn circles, Conway’s is the most immutable. I’ve yet to see an organization work around it. The concept applies to a broad spectrum of disciplines and fields, well past what we consider “business” settings. It’s applicable nearly anywhere groups of people are trying to make things together. And once you see it, it’s nearly impossible to unsee.
Companies can’t outrun their character
Awhile back I jumped in with an agency team on a homepage exploration for a large tech company. Early in the engagement, despite our concepts and work being fun, inventive, and on-brief, it was clear that the ideas we were presenting weren’t what the client wanted.
They hired the agency for their creative reputation, but — tale as old as time — ultimately wanted us to render a better version of their own concept. Eventually, we pieced together what was happening. We weren’t designing a potential new homepage; we were creating an artifact for an executive who was in a turf war with another executive for influence and resources. This wasn’t a design project, it was an internal cold war for focus and budget. (A remarkably high number of large projects I’ve been involved in play out like this. So much so that this anecdote could be about a handful of different companies I’ve worked with.)
We still did our best work, knowing it wouldn’t see the light of day, because that’s what professional agencies do. But the communication structures of the tech company prevented them from using that work how it was designed and intended — for their customers. Which taught me a lot about companies, why they do and don’t do certain things, and why so many of their products are the way they are.
If that company actually wanted a new homepage that would wow their customers, they could have had it (they’re clearly able to afford it!) But not unless they were willing to change the internal politics and culture incentives. They’re “constrained to produce designs which are copies of [their] communication structures” and their communication structures were, at least at that level at that time, turf wars. So the designs they produced inevitably looked like turf wars.
Their current homepage has the feel of a departmental civil war, with little fiefdoms vying for above-the-fold favor from their feudal lord, constrained by their in-fighting to produce copies of their conflict.
Not exactly inspiring for the consumer. Or good for business.
You grow what you sow
For good or ill, every organization is optimized to get the exact results it’s getting. (When systems show us what they do, we should believe them.) We can’t separate the product from the process. The way things are made is woven into their DNA.
But the DNA of an organization isn’t on the average customer’s mind. People mostly care about their problems being solved for a price they can live with. On the surface of that exchange, none of the org charts, internal politics, policies, procedures, KPIs, or corporate culture jargon du jour matter to the customer. But each of those things affect the customer, since they shape the outcome. So companies should care, if they want to stay in business.
When there are disconnects in a product, the origin is in the organization making the product. If an organization can identify and address their communication issues1, they can optimize for better outcomes. If they don’t, they’ll keep shipping broken things.
You can’t grow prize-winning tomatoes if you keep planting corn, no matter how much you optimize your gardening routine. And we can’t make holistic products, services, and experiences for people if we keep building companies with fractured org charts, rampant in-fighting, and unclear focus on the real needs of the customer.
Conway’s original white paper included this gem: “Because the design which occurs first is almost never the best possible, the prevailing system concept may need to change.” The “way we do things” creates the results we get. Want different results? Try different methods.
Well done truth!