Design rules: past and future

Abstract

It is a great honor to have a special issue of Industrial and Corporate Change dedicated to The Power of Modularity Today: 20 Years of "Design Rules."In this retrospective article, I will give some background on how Design Rules, Volume 1: The Power of Modularity came to be written and list what I believe were its major contributions. I go on to describe the book's shortcomings and gaps, which prevented the widespread adoption of the tools and methods the book proposed. I then explain how the perception of the gaps influenced my thinking in Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations.