Tortoise or the Hare? Why You Need Both
When you're hiring, do you focus solely on finding your team of experts?
Has that gotten you to where you want to be? Do you have an app people use and return to regularly, or do you have a lot of first time users who download the app and never return because you've created an app for geeks built by geeks?
Building strong cross-disciplinary teams doesn't just foster innovation by encouraging non-linear leaps in thinking, it also means you have a mix of people who are experts to beginners in each subject. That forces the experts to rethink their assumptions and their approach.
Having a combination of extensive developer experience and the ability to put myself in the shoes of a naive user, I have a fiendish understanding of what buttons to push to deliberately get myself into hot water. I can't tell you how many times my husband and other architects have howled: what possessed you to do that?!
I would simply blink and ask: you think others won't try and pull that?
This is the first step to understanding you have an app / system / environment for geeks built by geeks.