It's no secret that for some time now, great products can be developed by small teams with modern tools (.Net, PHP, Ruby on Rails, or Aolserver a few years ago); 3 programmers can conduct a small war of software development.
I play tenor in the JP Big Band, we had our first rehearsal last week after the August hiatus. It was great to be playing together again but some of the numbers were pathetic. A big band is 17 pieces and the potential for chaos is significant.
When you ignore the other guys in your section, play loud, or lose time - you get a train wreck.You can be off on your own, red-hot and having a terrific time but the ensemble is somewhere else and pretty soon it all breaks down. I think Jim McCarthy coined the phrase "programmers in a black hole" to describe developers who are hopelessly lost from the project. That's why software product development is like big band jazz, if you're a developer, product manager or salesman - you gotta keep on listening to the rest of the team or your project will come apart at the seams.
