# Design System Culture

**URL:** <https://discuss.coding.social/t/design-system-culture/204>\
**Category:** SX solution development\
**Tags:** best-practice\
**Created:** [November 16, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://discuss.coding.social/t/design-system-culture/204 "2022-11-16T16:17:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ryuno-Ki](https://discuss.coding.social/user_avatar/discuss.coding.social/ryuno-ki/32/44_2.png) [@Ryuno-Ki](https://discuss.coding.social/u/Ryuno-Ki)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://discuss.coding.social/t/design-system-culture/204/1 "2022-11-16T16:17:53Z")

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At [Smashing Meets: Design Systems](https://smashingconf.com/meets-design-systems/schedule/) on 2022-11-14T23:00:00Z [Ben Callahan](https://bencallahan.com/) gave a talk on how the culture impacts the design system (and vice versa). He also glimpses into how collaboration is possible (or not).

My takeaway is this paper:

> **[an\_introduction\_to\_the\_competing\_values\_framework.pdf](https://www.thercfgroup.com/files/resources/an_introduction_to_the_competing_values_framework.pdf)**
>
> 831.13 KB

The recordings are expected to be uploaded next week. I will add a reply here with a link once I learn about them.

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**Author:** ![mariha](https://discuss.coding.social/user_avatar/discuss.coding.social/mariha/32/171_2.png) [@mariha](https://discuss.coding.social/u/mariha)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2022, 4:18am UTC](https://discuss.coding.social/t/design-system-culture/204/2 "2022-11-23T04:18:51Z")

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> [@Ryuno-Ki](#):
>
> how the culture impacts the design system (and vice versa)

It recalls me [Conway’s law](http://www.melconway.com/Home/Conways_Law.html):

> Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.

There are some examples in the paper where Conway first described his obervations, I may also try to provide some from my own experiance if you were interested in the topic.

I’ve seen it sometimes used by change managers / organizational agile cauches as an argument for cross-functional teams structure so there are many articles in the internet mentioning it in this context.

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**Author:** ![aschrijver](https://discuss.coding.social/user_avatar/discuss.coding.social/aschrijver/32/3_2.png) [@aschrijver](https://discuss.coding.social/u/aschrijver)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2022, 11:34am UTC](https://discuss.coding.social/t/design-system-culture/204/3 "2022-12-01T11:34:28Z")

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It is great that you mention Conway’s Law. To me the question would be:

> How would the decentralized organization structure look like that takes the grassroots dynamics and culture of Fediverse and Free Software movement into account?