In the company I used to work for, the CTO and VP of Product Management were equals, both reporting to the CEO. The CTO's reports included the QA director, Dev

In the company I used to work for, the CTO and VP of Product Management were equals, both reporting to the CEO. The CTO's reports included the QA director, Dev director, and Project Management director. On any given project, we had a Product Manager who set the business requirements, a Project Manager who ran the project, a Dev lead in charge of the development team, and a QA lead in charge of QA. None of these people could override the others because of the reporting arrangement, so we had to collaborate instead to make sure we all met our goals. Early on this arrangement worked really well. But it started falling apart when ownership of the company changed and politics became a factor as people who cared more about moving up through the organization than about the success of the company and quality of the products were hired and promoted. My take is that bad management will destroy any approach you might take to producing good software. That's why I eventually left.