It's a bit worse than that. The borgizaf is often defined by business development, or somebody like that. They decide they need one after a bunch of customer interviews. But the customers don't actually know what they need. So the business development people are trying to describe something that the users need but don't know that they need, and that doesn't yet exist.
Yeah, the main problem is uncertainty, not lines of code to write. You measure progress mostly by how much you reduce uncertainty.
Yes. Often the need is best understood through iteration, but certainly having "eyes on" by the ultimate customer helps. Once I was told by marketing that security was not important. The customers got a prototype and screamed bloody murder. I think the moral of the story is to view the development of a product as a collaboration between all parties. All, including customers.
If there are silos of concerns then you can end up with a beer distribution game.
And this: "You measure progress mostly by how much you reduce uncertainty." is very succinct
Yeah, the main problem is uncertainty, not lines of code to write. You measure progress mostly by how much you reduce uncertainty.