Imagine that you are the top engineer in the nation of Japan and have just been hired by Toyota upon your graduation from the most esteemed of universities. The president of Toyota greets you on your very first day. While you walk together, you are filled with excitement as you wonder what the view will be like from your beautiful new office.
Your destination however is the production shop floor, and the president takes some chalk, draws a circle on the shop floor, and says “stand in this circle and observe”. Then he walks away.
Standing in the circle denotes involvement not separation and is a fact-finding mission to fully understand a process.
Programming and developing are very different.
Programming has a start and a finish and can be completed from a distance.
Development is a continuous process that starts from the circle, and our experience has been that the most value comes from being on site and working directly with stakeholders.