Yes and no. While we were able and allowed to talk, the developers were in practice discouraged from doing so on the kind of regular and casual basis that I think is probably best. First Carol, and later Dave acted as a pretty strong shield between dev and management. I can't say that was especially their fault -- it was what pretty much *everyone* on both sides wanted -- but in retrospect it was a bad idea, encouraging a subtle "us vs. them" mentality. It was fostered by, and worsened, the trust issues.
Hence the comment about structure. While we thought of ourselves as very flat and open, that isn't how the actual lines of communication flowed -- those were actually something like four levels deep, which is silly for a 25 person company. In practice, even the senior developers like myself interacted with management nowhere near enough day-to-day, and the junior ones hardly at all.
Granted, by big-company standards it was a pretty thin structure. But the communications still weren't all that good...
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Hence the comment about structure. While we thought of ourselves as very flat and open, that isn't how the actual lines of communication flowed -- those were actually something like four levels deep, which is silly for a 25 person company. In practice, even the senior developers like myself interacted with management nowhere near enough day-to-day, and the junior ones hardly at all.
Granted, by big-company standards it was a pretty thin structure. But the communications still weren't all that good...