Ha, to torture it a bit, I think this can be even more generalized to include more than enterprise software - furniture, office spaces, office design, ALL are sold to the c-levels and their support staff and not the people who work in and with those decisions.
Yes!! I recently read about a new hospital wing or medical center or somesuch where they had – gasp – involved actual future users (ie. medical personnel and patients) already in the design phase! This was regarded as something revolutionary and almost unheard of.
I also read about a similar project, ostensibly designed using latest principles and understanding of hospital work, which unsurprisingly turned out to have a zillion papercuts and completely impractical design decisions. So, yeah.
I've been involved into several major hospital construction projects in the last ten years, including the design, construction, and move of an entirely new replacement hospital and including front-line staff in the design process is pretty standard practice. Getting humans to all like the same thing is hard.
Very true. In my company they are planning another office redesign and the people sitting in that environment had zero involvement. Our role is only to be cheerful once the new plan is revealed.
I have made a few practical suggestions to the facility people in the past always gut shrugged off.
