Conway's law describes the link between communication structure of organizations and the systems they design. It is named after the computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967.[1] His original wording was:[2][3]
[O]rganizations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
— Melvin E. Conway, How Do Committees Invent?
The law is based on the reasoning that in order for a product to function, the authors and designers of its component parts must communicate with each other in order to ensure compatibility between the components. Therefore, the technical structure of a system will reflect the social boundaries of the organizations that produced it, across which communication is more difficult. In colloquial terms, it means complex products end up "shaped like" the organizational structure they are designed in or designed for. The law is applied primarily in the field of software architecture, though Conway directed it more broadly and its assumptions and conclusions apply to most technical fields.
[…] organizations which design systems […] are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.