[vvanders]

I would add that part of that experience is seeing how teams/situations/products pan out and then being able to recognize those patterns and nudge/head off issues early in the process.

In that respect I've learned a lot more from projects that have gone off the rails to some degree than projects where everything went according to plan.

In an ideal world you have the opportunity to give each person on the team the right amount of risk with enough of a safety net so that if things really go sideways the team has their back. Finding the balance with the rest of the project requirements, business inputs and other pieces is where it gets interesting.

[ajarmst]

Failure is our best teacher. I do spend a lot of time on that with my students. I have a professional and personal interest in formal failure analysis, and try to instill that in students. Apollo 1 saved more lives than it took, and Windows Vista teaches you everything you need to know about monolithic, slow-moving software projects with unclear goals. Dai-Katana and Duke Nukem are masters' courses in the toxic interaction of aggressive marketing and product development. I think Trump might end up being one of the best things that ever happened to American Democracy.