The structures of large systems tend to disintegrate during development, qualitatively more so than with small systems.
Why do large systems disintegrate?
-- How Do Committees Invent?, Melvin Conway
Why do large systems disintegrate?
-- How Do Committees Invent?, Melvin Conway
First, It is a natural temptation of the initial designer to delegate tasks when the apparent complexity of the system approaches his limits of comprehension. ... Either he struggles to reduce the system to comprehensibility and wins, or else he loses control of it.
Second, application of the conventional wisdom of management to a large design organization causes its communication structure to disintegrate.
One fallacy behind this calculation is the property of linearity which says that two men working for a year or one hundred men working for a week are resources of equal value. ...
Assuming that two men and one hundred men cannot work in the same organizational structure our homomorphism says that they will not design similar systems; therefore the value of their efforts may not even be comparable. ...
From experience we know that the two men, if they are well chosen and survive the experience, will give us a better system.
The second step in the disintegration of a system design -- the fragmentation of the design organization communication structure -- begins as soon as delegation has started.
Third, the homomorphism insures that the structure of the system will reflect the disintegration which has occurred in the design organization.
Probably the greatest single common factor behind many poorly designed systems now in existence has been the availability of a design organization in need of work.
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