Architecture and communication among product development engineers

This paper summarizes some quantitative measures and qualitative observations that we have made regarding the effective of architecture on technical communication. We begin with some early results, showing how the probability that two organizations' members will communicate regularly declines rapidly with the distance between their work locations. Following this, we assess several objections to these observations and deal with each. We look briefly at the relationships among different media, (i.e., face-to-face, telephone, electronic mad) and how each is affected by separation. Finally, we discuss some examples of architectural strategies for managing communication.