I suppose it depends on what you/your-organization views as the realm of "management". I like Joel Spolsky's suggestion that they should just be moving furnitur

I suppose it depends on what you/your-organization views as the realm of "management". I like Joel Spolsky's suggestion that they should just be moving furniture out of the engineers' way. Of course, he cites Microsoft, and I know how many of us feel about that company. "At Microsoft, management was extremely hands-off. In general, everybody was given some area to own, and they owned it. Managers made no attempt to tell people what to do, in fact, they saw their role as running around, moving the furniture out of the way, so their reports could get things done. " src: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000072.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000072.html