[baq]

> What’s interesting here, when you look at the highest-level block diagram of S3’s technical design, is the fact that AWS tends to ship its org chart. This is a phrase that’s often used in a pretty disparaging way, but in this case it’s absolutely fascinating.

I’d go even further: at this scale, it is essential and required to develop these kind of projects with any sort of velocity.

Large organizations ship their communication structure by design. The alternative is engineering anarchy.

[CobrastanJorji]

I'll take the metaphor one step further. The architecture will, over time, inevitably change to resemble its org chart, therefore it is the job of a sufficiently senior technical lead to organize the teams in such a way that the correct architecture emerges.

[capableweb]

Also known as "Conway's law"

> Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

[CobrastanJorji]

Right. Conway's Law describes the property that the architecture will grow to resemble the org chart. I'm suggesting that you can productively apply that principal to produce good software by shaping the org chart.

If Conway's Law is phrenology, the "science" of determining someone's personality by measuring their skull's dimensions, I'm suggesting Terry Prachett's retrophrenology, the process of hitting someone with a hammer very precisely to make them a better person.

[hobo_in_library]

This is also why reorgs tend to be pretty common at large tech orgs.

They know they'll almost inevitably ship their org chart. And they'll encounter tons of process-based friction if they don't.

The solution: Change your org chart to match what you want to ship

[mr_toad]

A more cynical take is that it makes it look like the new management is doing something.

An even more cynical take is that it makes it difficult to compare performance with past performance.

[Severian]

Straight from The Mythical Man Month: Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce systems which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

[_aaed]

something something Conway's law