Have you heard of Conway’s Law? It is sort of like Murphy’s Law,
except instead of everything that can go wrong going wrong,
everything that is already wrong gets baked into the next system
you build.
More precisely, Conway’s Law states that systems reflect the
organization that builds them. In the beginning that is usually
true. Teams design systems based on how modules interoperate,
who can access which data, and where decisions and visibility lie.
Over time the relationship begins to reverse. Once a system
becomes central to daily operations, the organization gets
accustomed to the flow of the system itself. Communication
patterns form around it. Future systems and transformation
efforts build on top of that structure and reinforce it again and
again. What began as a system reflecting the organization
gradually becomes the organization reflecting the system. This is
about to happen with AI, and most organizations won’t see it
coming.
That structure gets so locked in it persists long beyond every upgrade that follows.
Now you know why some approvals still route through a mailbox that feels like a historical artifact.
Nothing illustrates this better than the payroll system that once
shaped how your organization communicated. The people who
built it have retired. The vendor may no longer exist. The system
itself may have been replaced more than once. And yet the
structure it created often remains.
That payroll system did more than process paychecks. It became
the operating rhythm of the organization. Decisions routed
around it… teams organized themselves in relation to it. New
systems were built to accommodate it, yet nobody chose this. It
just stuck. Without deliberate intervention, your AI systems will
do exactly the same thing.
Why It Matters Now
AI is revealing communication patterns and decision pathways
that have been invisible for decades. It is also creating new ones
that did not exist before. That combination is rare. Organizations
that recognize this as a workforce design decision, not just a
technology decision, can use this moment to build collaboration
patterns and human AI teaming that reflect how they want to
operate. Organizations that recognize this as a workforce design
decision, not just a technology decision, can use this moment to
build collaboration patterns and human AI teaming that reflect
how they want to operate.
Getting your culture and human AI teaming right before the systems lock it in for you is what outsizes an AI investment. Conway saw this in 1967. The organizations that see it now have an extraordinary opportunity ahead of them.
