I didn't mention that as far as I knew, just this small piece of the system had taken more than six months and millions of dollars to build.

When I returned to the office I requested a meeting with Wiley, and as gently as I could, I shared what I had learned: The users were unhappy; the system was not meeting their needs; it didn't reflect where the business needed to go. I respectfully suggested it was time to start asking the users what they needed.

Wiley's face grew dark. He leaned forward in his seat, and through clenched teeth he said, "I don't need to talk to users about what they need. I tell users what they need."

There wasn't much left to talk about after that, and several weeks later I departed from the company. Shortly thereafter, from what I understand, Wiley left too -- not necessarily of his own volition.