I don't know where you worked, but have I worked in a place that did a design document, dropped it off on my desk, and left me to work. Them: "Why didn't you i

I don't know where you worked, but have I worked in a place that did a design document, dropped it off on my desk, and left me to work. Them: "Why didn't you include the functionality to twiddle the foo?" Me: "What? I don't know what you are talking about." Them: "I swear it was in the design document, it's one of the most important features!" But it was not. Every design document has flaws, and even if they are as accurate as possible, many projects had to be updated after the fact as even the designers themselves did not predict some of the functionality needed. I've found that when developing new things you need to have steady communication with the people who need to use it, to understand what they need and why. For recreating old the things (CRUD apps and whatnot) I'm sure this is not nearly as important, but I have always wondered why recreating old software with modern tools has usually resulted in everyone just using the old software. I do know in one case I've done this, I was told not to include certain features because no one uses them... only to find our users not updating, because everyone needed those features. Some times even the vendors don't know what the customers want.