Conway’s law
Conway’s law describes the link between the communication structure of organizations and the systems those organizations design for their own needs. The law is named after the computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967.
Organizations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
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.
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.
Conway’s law is often cited in discussions about the design of software systems, and methods like domain-driven design are intended to mitigate its effects.