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Conway's Law: The Skeleton Of Devops

Abstract:

Devops is about communication. In order to make better software, we seek out diverse viewpoints, use a common vocabulary, and encourage transparency.

But despite all this focus on communication, we don't have much of a framework to guide our decisions.

"Should we do continuous integration?"

"Why not? People seem to like that."

"What about ChatOps?"

"Sure, yeah; it works for GitHub."

Well, there's a half-forgotten rule -- first stated 46 years ago -- that can guide us through these decisions. It's called Conway's Law:

Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

I'll show how Conway's Law is derived, how it's been empirically tested, and how it informs so much of what we do in devops. I want my audience to walk away with a new tool for spreading devops, shaping cross-team communication, and moving forward with confidence.

Speaker: Dan Slimmon

Slides:

Video:

DevOpsDays Minneapolis 2014 -- Dan Slimmon, Conway's Law: the Skeleton of DevOps from devopsdays on Vimeo.