Collaborating ?

Little piece from a blog that made me think:

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I like to ask developers who collaborates with their customers. Nearly everyone always raises their hands with a great deal of enthusiasm and pride. I ask them to leave their hands up if they've spoken to their customers in the last week. With much shame, nearly every hand drops.
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If you talk to your customer frequently you can discover small problems before they balloon out of control. If you tell them to be quiet, sit over there, and I'll call you when I have something to show you, then your small problems will get big very, very quickly. Once people don't trust you anymore, they'll go to any lengths to force you to prove you're doing the right thing (can we say "compliance"?), or to dump you.
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