Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Inverse Conway manoeuvre
Designing the organisation to produce the architecture you want, on the basis that the system will mirror the organisation's structure either way.
Where the standard develops it
- SV-6Organisational design and leading changeTeam structures, ownership boundaries, reorgs, and transitions.
- TJ-1Evaluating architectural decisions and their organisational consequencesTrade-offs, reversibility, and who has to coordinate because of this.
Related terms
- Architecture review forum
- A standing forum where significant designs get cross-team scrutiny early.
- Charter
- The explicit statement of what a team or department owns.
- Decision process
- The usual way a manager of managers intervenes in a cross-team technical decision.
- Decision rights
- The explicit statement of who may decide what, and at which level of authority.
- Leading change
- What a structural change needs beyond its announcement.
- Mirroring hypothesis
- The empirically tested form of Conway's observation.
- One-way door
- A decision that is hard to reverse and so deserves deliberation and senior involvement.
- Ownership map
- The written record of every system, capability and decision and who owns each, checked before and after any structural change.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Inverse Conway manoeuvre. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.inverse-conway-manoeuvre). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/inverse-conway-manoeuvre