User Feedback From the Stage
Playing with my band on stage is an experience that I find analogous to the experience of working on a software engineering team. Each contributor to the sound of the band is responsible for a different part that must integrate back to the whole.
When you play your part well, and also spend adequate attention to the composite sound of the band, you find yourself “in the groove” and the result is a performance greater than the sum of its parts. Likewise, a team of individual contributors, via their social interactions each other, find a similar exponential effect. The real time feedback you get from your bandmates or from your teammates enables you to be in sync as you work together. As a result, you can experience the symbiosis and joy of a rare type of teamwork that can rapidly generate enormous value.
When a band performs on stage, the product is the music and the user is the audience. Some of the best performances I've had were because of the energy of the audience as they consumed the “product” and the band was able to feed off that energy and take the performance in the right direction. The shorter the feedback cycle with your user, the better the product you can create. This instant feedback from your audience is an impetus for a more cohesive team and getting the product right.