3 ms·
Steve McConnell identified it as the number of lines of communication in the team or dept creating the module, incl dependents and dependers. It's why Conway's
by kitd 7y ago
Steve McConnell identified it as the number of lines of communication in the team or dept creating the module, incl dependents and dependers.
It's why Conway's Law exists, and points towards the importance of well-designed and -specified APIs.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y agoUpvote for mentioning Steve McConnell.
- daveslash 7y agoIf you consider people on a team as nodes in a graph, and lines of communication as edges, then a team of n people has potentially (n(n-1))/2 potential lines of communication. I try to express to people that the more potential lines of communication you have, the greater the chance of miscommunication. I think this is also called out in Brooks' The Mythical Man Month.
- kitd 7y agoIndeed. It's even a law named after him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law