Well put. 10 years ago, I was the "idea guy" managing a team of non-developers. I grew frustrated with the pace of bug fixes and (what I considered) small impr

Well put. 10 years ago, I was the "idea guy" managing a team of non-developers. I grew frustrated with the pace of bug fixes and (what I considered) small improvements out of the development team. I got so frustrated that I started developing my own applications for my team, which greatly increased their productivity. Eventually that led to my career as a software developer. Years later as a CIO, I am frequently asked by the idea guys, "Can't you just build this one little thing?" and I get to be the guy who says "well that's probably a 3-6 month project." Invariably the idea guy starts to think that you're intentionally sandbagging him and sours the relationship. That and some other things ended up driving my predecessor to burn out, which is how I became the CIO.