[sjellis]

"That said, one thing I've learned is that you can't please developers.

The same people on this forum that are deriding "personal communication" in favor of more formal communication are the same ones that complain about project managers and "unnecessary" status updates and communication."

I agree with all of your points, except this one. My own view is that managing a technical team is just extremely demanding, and many managers simply aren't up to it. Developers are educated, intelligent professionals who spend a lot of time thinking and talking about a range of specialized technical stuff. If managers can't keep up with their team on their own resources, they end up asking for more of the team attention to compensate. And from the point of the view of developers, that is unecessary communication that they don't get value from.

[gxs]

I think what you're saying is that if a manager can't adequately track what their team is working on and how they are doing, they put the burden of that gap in communication on the developers.

This is a valid point, some kind of asymmetry in the communication.

I don't think this contradicts what I said, rather branches off into another subject, whether your reporting manager is doing a good job or not.