Also individual contributors often fail to grasp the big picture, what seems like an insurmountable issue to them is irrelevant or not a priority in the grand scheme of things. Or it's a pain point for them - but dealing with it will hurt the project overall. Can't even count the number of development/design/product bike shedding discussions, wasted effort on covering edge cases, etc. on features/products that get scrapped once they get tested by users.

This is why I hate managing people - I hate having to deal with all the egos and trying to empathize with everyone to try to get a sense of where they are coming from just to judge what's important or not, and weighing political impact of different calls. Code is simple by comparison.

A lot of this can be solved just by telling that to the developers. Sometimes I feel like I'm in some sort of secret don't-let-your-right-hand-know-what-your-left-hand-is-doing style organization. I was trying to meet [artificial] deadlines and putting effort into handling every corner case while a project was doomed due to external factors (lawsuit).

My most productive time is when a manager is honest and willing to explain how the whole thing fits together.