Architecture and communication among product development engineers

This article summarizes some quantitative measures and qualitative observations regarding the effect of architecture on technical communication. It shows how the probability that two engineers or scientists in an organization will communicate declines rapidly with the distance between their work locations. It also addresses several objections to these observations and examines the relationships among different media, (i.e., face-to-face, telephone, electronic mail) and how each is affected by separation. Finally, it discusses some examples of architectural strategies for managing communication.