great question, i used to wonder what the heck my development manager was doing all day, then i became him. currently i work in a mid-sized company (150+). if

great question, i used to wonder what the heck my development manager was doing all day, then i became him. currently i work in a mid-sized company (150+). if developers and designers could work out effective processes while maintaining everyone's happiness/career growth, but at the same time pump out good product then yes, you don't need a manager. perhaps smaller companies are able to make good decisions quickly and don't need to be bound by so many processes, and i imagine happiness is really unimportant to everyone in these types of environments anyway because everyone's already a masochist, but anytime you have multiple divisions with different priorities then you need someone. decision making processes typically become difficult when there are too many involved.