The are some laws I keep in mind at work
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 in Harvard Business Review. His original wording was:
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.
— Melvin E. Conway, How Do Committees Invent?
Picture credit: Manu Cornet / www.bonkersworld.net
There was many occasions at work i’ve observed managers and decision makers rushed into the migration from monolith to microservices or from on-premises to cloud-based. If I encounter any situation like that again, I may ask myself: Is setup “squads” always good? Remember Conway’s law
Transitioning from a monolithic system to a microservices one without proper preparation can result in integration issues and increase the cognitive load for team members. Key considerations in preparation include:
- Determining whether the desired architecture is suitable. Proper team design is crucial for successful software architecture. Understanding the desired architecture before organizing the teams is essential. The chosen organization setup should enable fast flow within teams.
- Understanding the communication style of my organization (team, segment, company).
Many companies try to adopt modern practices such as “squads” or “agile” without first addressing foundational organizational and communication structures. This can result in inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
Betteridge’s law of headlines: “any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no’”.
Betteridge’s law states that any headline phrased as a question can be answered with “no.” It suggests that such question headlines are often used by journalists when they lack strong evidence or sources to make a definitive claim, but still want to attract readers with a provocative or sensational headline.
Here are 5 examples of headlines from reputable newspapers that illustrate Betteridge’s law of headlines:
- “Is Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover ‘Putting Free Speech at Risk’?” – The New York Times
- “Can the U.S. Avoid a Recession?” – The Wall Street Journal
- “Will the Supreme Court Overturn Roe v. Wade?” – The Washington Post
- “Is the U.S. Doing Enough to Help Ukraine?” – Los Angeles Times
- “Has the Pandemic Disrupted Scientific Research for Good?” – The Atlantic
Murphy’s law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
In some formulations, it is extended to “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.”
This law reminds me before I start any product discovery. Why so? The good product discovery will prove me wrong soon enough.
hello.thuydo 
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