Focus on Value
Why are we going to devote time and money toward making this software? “Because somebody told us to” is a bad answer. If the software we make doesn't provide value to the business, it's not worth whatever we paid for it.
A manager should encourage his team to try their best to attach a dollar value to each feature (or more likely each set of features) they're creating. This is the business case for the software, and there should be one. You need to answer two questions for each feature of the software your team is making:
What need for value will this feature address (that is, which of your customer's costs will it reduce or which revenues will it increase)?
By how much will it do that?
Sometimes you can't answer these questions ...
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