Conway's Law: The structure of a system reflects the structure of the organization that built it.
Article: Conway's Law
Imagine that simply assigning programmer teams to different floors of the same building can shape or even constrain the architecture of the software they develop.
This is Conway's Law. In Conway's words: "Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure."
If a single team writes a compiler, you get a one-pass compiler. But if you divide the team into two smaller teams, you get a two-pass compiler.
Placing teams in separate cities or in different parts of the organizational chart affects our communication structure because physical and organizational barriers inadvertently reduce interactions and communication. Although Conway's Law is usually discussed in the context of software development, the observation applies broadly to systems in general. For instance, consider how poverty, health care, housing, and education are related to the structures of government.
It's also interesting to think about how Conway's Law can apply to remote work. As everyone is remote, the physical barriers are higher. However, moving communication online also makes the impact of distance lower. In this digital setting, Conway's Law still holds though it now reflects online communication patterns. Unfortunately, dealing with time zone differences is still not fun.