[justaman]

I think the disconnect between management and the developers is worth discussing.

Its important for management to understand the difficulties and decisions made by a development team to properly create a roadmap for the business. I think the author is expressing that the lack of respect for the programmers opinions can be detrimental.

[exelius]

It's more that in a business (which is a power structure optimized for efficiency - meaning hierarchical power structure) the programmers are at the bottom of the pyramid. Involving their input would take far too many layers of overhead; so the decisions get made further up where there are fewer people to consult (and hence more efficient).

IMO it is essential in today's world to have competent engineering management in the room whenever any major product decisions are made.

[collyw]

This is probably why there is so much poor software about.