In a nutshell, the products we produces are representative of the company's internal organizational structures. Those who actually work at Ford, what do you think?
11 replies (most recent on top)
I thought Ford move on with the gobbleygook talk after firing Hackett??
So much paralysis by analysis.
Get it done!
That means make trucks and suv's now while not saying NO MORE CARS.
Make hybrids and plug ins and BEVS.
Wait for the battery revolution.
Are we that stupid?
Next.
I was an original authentic disruptor and don't like what is happening now.
Signed: Henry Ford
All I do is disrupt.
I am a disruptor.
Signed: W. Edwards Deming (rolling over in grave)
Yes, and a fine new slogan it is ! A good solution to understanding Conway is another Conway, so when I saw a six-pack of 'Conway's Irish Ale' by Great Lakes Brewing Co. at the market, I grabbed it straight away and put it into my cart. Cheers !
Oh yay, another motivational line/ theory handed down from our inept and disfunctional management to keep us running around in circles. I guess they needed it in to order new posters for the new offices they are building. What happened to the miraculous "Design Thinking" management spent 2 years sequestered on, to then deliver the almighty SRD that would fix everything. Yep, epic failure. Now the next koolaid line CEO steps in after another failed CEO and here we go again. Getting sick of the same old movie. So great, we say "Conway's Law". Well duh, we have the system and problems because of the leadership we have. So we keep the same people, promote them again, but think everything is going to change just because you named this latest reorg "Project Conway". Yea sure, that will magically change everything. Sheesh, how silly of us to miss that. Wow, everything is all better with the simple rebranding of the same people after a bit of musical chairs.
I had wondered why the term Conway was chosen for Project Conway. Now it makes sense.
Yes, I can see the appropriateness of using Conway's law to assess our PD situation. I agree with the statement from @1igr+199we0ai that our recent product failings are most likely a reflection on how we communicate across our various PD teams. (aka. fiefdoms)
My experience has been that cross department information transfer generally had to go up to and through our LL4 to be transferred to the other department's LL4, and on occasion it even involved the LL3s. Not an efficient process for the flow of information, and not near fast enough for addressing emerging issues quickly.
An LL5 told me If you find a problem with the bureaucracy at Ford, you are the problem.
This hold true. Those who eliminate bureaucracy are selected for resource actions and then the bureaucracy returns.
One software engineer noticed two team members collecting $600 in overtime per week for pages. He installed autocorrecting software which eliminates the pages and outages. Two months later the pages started again and he found that the team members had disabled the auto correcting software and were again collecting $600 in OT per week. He re-installed the autocorrecting software, again the team members disabled it. He met with three different LL6 to attempt persuade them to back him in his efforts to eliminate waste. None would support him. Last week, his LL5 told him to drop it.
This occurred in ITO, so no ITO has not turned a corner, bureaucracy, waste and massive over staffing remains in ITO.
@1ewb - I can confirm that for many years ITO automation was entirely Conway's Law in action. Mgmt didn't even seem to see that automation could use any flow other than the existing manual methods shuffling through far too many people to get simple things done.
The new self-serve tools for setting up trial machines, databases and such may be a sign that we're finally breaking out of the old paper pushing flows of the 20th century.
I think it may even apply on a broader scale. The time under Hackett introduced a lot of churn in to the whole Ford organization. As a result, the already dysfunction communication process was made even more broken and directionless.
Our current situation supports the premise of Conway's law. In the last few years we have experienced an increase in failed launches with our highly profitable vehicle lines and a significant increase in warranty costs across the board.
We are broken inside and our products reflect the state of our internal dysfunctional communication processes.
I guess the solution is more disruption! :)
There is some merit to Conways Law. I see it everyday in the internal products that are produced.
By internal products I mean software written.
For example while in ITO, most software written to “automate” Ford paper processes just mirrored the paper processes where simple requests required many levels of approval before actually being done. They also required manual audits by multiple layers. Of course what happens is everyone just either blindly approves or rejects the emailed forms because they have no idea what they represent, this results in endless meetings to discuss the requests and PMs to manage the requests.
So yes Conways Law in action. Dysfunctional organization, dysfunctional software product.
Funnily enough the truly innovative software that was a one button request, rule based (AI) approval and audit were quietly dismantled by LL6, LL5, LL4. These software did not mirror the organization. So even though the software allowed instantaneous request completion, increased productivity and staff reduction management did not want the software to exist at Ford. Gotta build empires and bureaucracy.