> In building traditional software, understanding the customer is one of the hardest steps because you can't simply walk over and observe them going about their daily work

One of the nicest things about the Agile fashion at the moment is that my customer (or a reasonable representative of him) is a couple of desks away and I really can go and ask him about what he wants. It's incredible how much time is saved by avoiding doing things he doesn't care about and how much happier he is with the end result.