Had an absolutely nonsensical product meeting today where the powers that be wanted to figure out how to deploy our three products, including mine, as a single package.
Nothing was said about why the three needed to be a package - they are very different, with differing requirements, functions, use cases, etc - or what that particular vision might look like. Nor was it a consideration that their respective requirements in "the cloud" (they used the word as a mantra) are very likely to be a) different and b) clash. Their practical singular focus was deployment, with a suggestion of a single security clearance rather than three separate ones.
In vain, I asked what the vision - the benefit of doing this - was. I pointed out that while I can certainly see that there are some commonalities, the act of getting the three products to talk to each other will itself drive the design of each product but also any interface and system requirement, so wouldn't it be nice if we did all that first...?
Nope. We need to understand what it takes to deploy them.
So I named the effort "The Field orf Dreams". If you build it they will come. I will look for a t-shirt to wear for a coming product meeting.