[xemdetia]

> Other companies take it as a feature demand. I find this bizarre, because I have barely (or never) used their product.

This is something that I've seen constantly from the PMP/offering manager/product manager types and have been in the room where it happens. The thing that is utterly baffling is that it's usually a vague intent from an interested but not current user but then the person writing down these imagined requirements asks zero follow-up questions in a complete disservice to the user. So for example 'does your product use AI' or 'do you have a slack integration' open ended questions turn into firm requirements 'to close the deal' internally but with a completely headless goal. When I am usually in the room I at least give the customer the dignity of trying to work out what their idea/perceived benefit is with them so I can accurately transmit the knowledge to the team. Often someone more experienced with the product's offering can solve the real customer use case with existing features that just doesn't have the same label.

My favourite firing of a software company was when they expressed that they were refocusing from clear stability initiatives to machine learning driven analytic dashboards. This was even though this was a customer retention meeting company to company that was spawned over threats to not renew... because of stability issues.