[uglygoblin]

> They almost never reflect on the time they’ve wasted or how they don’t really understand the goals or users for the software they are responsible for.

I think the quoted statement tends to be a systematic issue on struggling projects that describes the decision makers, regardless of role.

I'm not sure how anybody can expect other outcomes than a few lucky successes and a lot of failures when understanding why you are building something seems to be undervalued by management, technical or other.