# Laws of organizations and projects These are short restatements of some famous and not-so-famous adages and heuristics. - [Conway's law](!W): product structure reflects the producers' communication structure - [Gall's law](!W "John Gall (author)#Gall's law"): a viable complex system isn't designed from scratch; it evolves from a viable simple system - [Goodhart's law](!W): "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." ([Marilyn Strathern](!W)) - [The iron law of oligarchy](!W "Iron law of oligarchy"): every organization develops a ruling elite. (Example: ["Ex-Valve employee describes ruthless internal politics at 'self-organizing' companies"](https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless-industry-politics/).) - [Keith's law](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of): "In a complex system, the cumulative effect of a large number of small optimizations is externally indistinguishable from a radical leap." (Venkatesh Rao) - [Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy](!W "Jerry Pournelle#Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy"): bureaucratic organizations become controlled by people working in the interest of the bureaucracy itself - [The Shirky principle](!W "Clay Shirky#Shirky principle"): "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." ([Kevin Kelly](!W "Kevin Kelly (editor)")) ## See also - [Concepts](/concepts) ## Page metadata URL: Published 2020-10-17, updated 2021-08-10. Tags: - bookmarks - definitions - group dynamics - politics - work