Story time — I saw hundreds of thousands of dollars thrown away on a prematurely acquired software product that was eventually killed off.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Higher ups signed papers and informed the engineers afterwards. The engineering team didn’t have enough resources and and the new product was architecturally incompatible with existing code. The intention wasn’t to kill the product.
Two years later, about a handful of licenses were sold. Product integration failed. It was a dud.
Had anyone talked to engineering before signing the contract, these problems could have been avoided.
An effective General (CEO) visits the trenches where his soldiers (engineers) fight from time to time and talks to them. He is cautious about surrounding himself with yes-men. Yes-men don’t give you the whole picture.
The hard part about being a skilled worker is knowing where you’re competent and where you’re not. It’s the second part that gets smart people into trouble.