This is a really good question, Beril. My colleague is being somewhat flip and also somewhat old school. My visual of his version is a bunch of coders on one side of the building furiously producing new versions of the product while the other side of the building is teams of salespeople furiously closing deals on what’s been built and what’s going to be built before it’s built.

I don’t disagree with him, per se, but in my version you have people strategically building a product on one side while the other side has people doing exactly what you said in your last sentence — establishing relationships with relevant stakeholders for a long term strategy.

And also closing :)