Weighing feedback

For most of my career I've worked on software projects that could be considered internal tools. I love doing this because I'm close to the people that use the tools I build and support. This has a lot of advantages including fast feedback and being available to support individuals when they run into unexpected behavior with a tool. That said one thing you have to balance is the amount of feedback you receive about the tools you build. Sometimes your most vocal partners are also individuals that use the tools the most, other times those asking for the most features or telling you all the ways the tool could be better use it very little in comparison to the broader community of users. When considering some feedback last year my manager shared this quote with me that I've held on to:

The strength of ones opinion should be matched by the level of their involvement.