Page "Design by committee" Paragraph 1

The term is especially common in technical parlance, and it legitimizes the need and general acceptance of a unique systems architect.

Often, when software is designed by a committee, the original motivation, specifications and technical criteria take a backseat and poor choices may be made merely to appease the egos of several individual committee members.

Such products and standards end up doing too many things or having parts that fit together poorly ( because the entities who produced those parts were unaware of each other's requirements for a good fit ).