Conway's Law

Definition

The observation that organizations design systems that mirror their communication structure. If your company has four teams, you'll build four subsystems—whether that makes sense or not.

Example Usage

Our microservices architecture is a mess because of Conway's Law—we have one service per department instead of one per domain.

Origin

Formulated by programmer Melvin Conway in 1967, later popularized in 'The Mythical Man-Month'

Fun Fact

Companies that understand Conway's Law practice 'reverse Conway maneuver,' restructuring their teams to match the architecture they want, rather than letting org charts dictate code.

Source: Software architecture and organizational management theory

Related Terms

Beginner

execute

To run or carry out code or commands, making your carefully crafted instructions actually do something instead of just sitting there looking pretty. It's the moment when theory becomes practice, when algorithms come alive, and when you discover whether your code is brilliant or catastrophically flawed. Also means to kill someone, but in programming it's slightly less dramatic.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

impersonate

To assume someone else's identity, whether you're an actor in character, a hacker stealing credentials, or an IT admin temporarily operating with another user's permissions. In tech, user impersonation is a legitimate troubleshooting tool; everywhere else, it's usually either entertainment or fraud. The legality depends entirely on whether you have permission.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

transceiver

A device that both transmits and receives signals, because apparently having two separate boxes for talking and listening was too much of a hassle. Think of it as the ultimate multitasker in the communications world—your walkie-talkie, cell phone, and Wi-Fi router all use these. Engineers love them because cramming two functions into one box is peak efficiency, even if it makes troubleshooting twice as annoying.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

Scrum

A framework within Agile methodology that organizes work into sprints and meetings that are definitely not meetings but "ceremonies." It features roles like Scrum Master, which sounds like a martial arts title but mostly involves asking people what they did yesterday.

💻 Tech / IT

Beginner

memory

In computing, the digital real estate where your computer stores data it needs right now (RAM) or forever (ROM). In humans, it's the brain's filing system that somehow remembers embarrassing moments from 2003 but forgets why you walked into a room. The tech version is measured in gigabytes; the human version is measured in regrets and random song lyrics.

💻 Tech / IT

Advanced

quantum

The smallest indivisible unit of a given quantity, or in buzzword terms, whatever makes your tech startup sound 500% more impressive to investors. In physics, it's the fundamental discrete quantity of any physical property; in business, it's whatever you stick in front of 'computing' or 'leap' to sound revolutionary. Real quantum mechanics is complicated; fake quantum marketing is everywhere.

💻 Tech / IT

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