...in a comment on a comment to another post. I think that it bears repeating...[changed]
Steve Jobs said, "people don't know what they want until we give it to them". He was right. We need to hold that thought in our heads, for we are prone to obidging the loudest compainers, which we shouldn't.
If I hear the word, "stakeholder" in a meeting my mind says, "an opinionated shouter that we'd be wise to ignore if we want this thing to work".
Jobs got things wrong, he got things right, what he never did was to produce something designed by a committee that decided an outcome based on listening to those who shouted the loudest. Jobs produced lovely things that we didn't know that we needed. Everyone else listened to what their customers wanted, produced crap and then scrambled to build cheaper, crappier versions of what Apple had done. And they mostly failed.
They failed because they listened to their 'stakeholders'.
Feedback is important but much more important is filtering it. If you just do what the latest shouter wants you to do, are you really doing anything?
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We never knew we needed VHS recorders - until we got them. Ditto MPVs, computers-only really big firms had those perish the thought of personal pcs, games consoles, mobile phones - imagine not having one of those now-a-days. Was it a Top Gear insult about 'looks like it was designed by a committee'?New comment
great commentS - very valid and appropriate for the consumer world.
Not sure about my world, where we have to design by committee - not for the end user, but because our products are so big and complex that to take a decision independently can have so many unforeseen consequences.....