Applying Conway's Law

Interview Phase (Optional)

When to Interview: Skip if the user has already specified: existing team structure, team responsibilities, and autonomous boundary preferences. Interview when team structure is unclear or organizational alignment hasn't been discussed.

Interview Strategy: Understand team organization and decision-making to design system boundaries that teams can own independently. Misalignment here creates bottlenecks and tight coupling later.

Critical Questions

When team structure or boundaries are unclear:

1. Team Structure & Ownership (Impact: Determines how many swimlanes/systems to create)
   • Question: "How is your organization structured? (A) Single team owns everything, (B) Separate teams by domain (payments, inventory, etc.), (C) Separate teams by function (backend, frontend, etc.)"
   • Why it matters: Team structure directly shapes system boundaries; aligning them reduces coordination overhead
   • Follow-up triggers: If (B) → ask what each team owns; if (C) → discuss how to organize by domain instead