The solution usually isn't "better people." It's engaging people on the same goals and making sure each of them knows how their part fits with the others. It's also recognizing when hard stuff is worth doing. Yeah you've got a module with 15 years of tech debt that you didn't create, and no-one on the team is confident in touching anymore. Unlike acne, it won't get better if you don't pick at it. Build out what that tech debt is costing the company and the risk it creates. Balance that against other goals, and find a plan that pays it down at the right time and the right speed.
The users are right there, go make friends. Learn what they're doing day to day. And how it fits into the larger picture.
These sessions are lightweight, and auto schedule every three weeks with no required action items and people come out of it amazed every time, lots of little bugs have been fixed, and connections are being made.
The culture of not engaging with the end users when they're so readily available is an odd one to me. And you can really get to say 80% of macro picture understanding and user experience design fundamentals with a fairly low lift.
To do this I created a sign up form and an auto scheduler that interacts with the Slack API. The scheduling and getting folk on board is the hardest part. Also finding time if you do things outside the product road map.
The user, ethically, is another piece of evidence - especially in real time and at huge scale.
So you are so right about the user. The user comes first, the technology second, and when the service of the latter benefits the former, greatly, at scale, the people problems become, well, people solutions - i.e., the user.