There are three constants when dealing with organizations and its people. And there are three rules or laws that can describe these constants. Keeping these mind have helped me throughout my career.
At the top-level we’ve Conway’s Law and the fact that Organizations are resistant to change.
“Organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of communication structures of these organizations.”
At the user-level, we’ve the Pareto Rule and the fact that Users are resistant to change.
“People use 20% of their tools 80% of the time because people stick to what they know.”
Last, but not least, we’ve the Law of Entropy and the fact that it doesn’t matter how hard you try, Chaos will happen.
“Natural processes have a preferred progress towards chaos.”
Keeping these rules/laws in mind will help you be aware, organize, plan, and attack hard and ambiguous problems when working with organizations and its people.
The above was inspired by a presentation by Vicki Boykis — check out her great blog.