swombat, hapless, you both hit the nail :o). Our management disappears and/or does not care about software. We got a young guy with little experience, who has

swombat, hapless, you both hit the nail :o). Our management disappears and/or does not care about software. We got a young guy with little experience, who has to run the software configuration control business and he gets rather frustrated. So we developer are somehow self-organizing. This is a problem in some cases, but it is also terrific in others. That is the reason why I asked. How do you do it? Your managers don't shut the door and do it for you. They need developers expertise, right? Oh, yes. You may wonder how this can survive? We develop for a scientific project. So our managers are scientists (like the developers). Although we have some very smart developers in the project, management is not among the talents of most scientists.