All these things vary all the time. When I say "whatever works" what I mean is no one knows what will work for your team. No textbook will know that. It might consist of some composition of management patterns from some books, but often it will not, and you need to develop an eye for deviating from that. There is no recipe. There is no cluster of things that all the good companies had in common -- they all did (and still do) things very differently. Amazon treats people like shit and hammers on them -- and delivers good products. Google forsakes some income opportunities to selectively uphold their "don't be evil" mantra. Apple puts usability ahead of everything. Microsoft puts enterprise saleability ahead of everything.
All these different value systems, management systems, workflow monitoring processes, etc., etc., have places and times when they'll work. If you're stuck thinking in terms of rigid structures, you won't see it, and it truly can make a big difference.
In every job I've ever left from it has been because the process and experience of being managed in that role had led to burnout even after talking openly with managers about what wasn't working. I'm (perhaps foolishly) a very loyal guy. I'd love nothing more to stay at a company for a long time and get in a groove, even if I was leaving money on the table by doing so. But I can't seem to find any organization that values human-affirming management concepts over and above ritualistic adherence to bureaucratic process.
Anyway, I just see a lot of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" in this. If you are not already familiar, you may enjoy reading Moral Mazes, because I think it's impossible to approach the task of software management without first approaching the generic task of human management and how it fits into bureaucratic machines.
