Conway's law is an adage named after computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1968. It states that "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations".
Although sometimes construed as humorous, Conway's law was intended as a valid sociological observation. It is based on the reasoning that in order for two separate software modules to interface correctly, the designers and implementers of each module must communicate with each other. Therefore, the interface structure of a software system will reflect the social structure of the organization(s) that produced it.
Read more about Conway's Law: Examples, Supporting Evidence, Variations
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