Sun Tzu is attributed the original idea that “no plan survives first contact with the enemy”. I’m not one for using war-based analogies in the workplace, so I enjoyed learning of Steve Blanks’ modified saying that “no plan survives first contact with customers”.
It’s true. We can plan all we want, but what we first launch to market is unlikely to be what customers want. And when they share with us what they actually want, it’s up to us to either ignore them and stubbornly execute our original plan, or take heed of timeless advice and make changes to our product.