Scott Berkun, who spent nine years as a manager at Microsoft, has authored How to Manage Smart People, a short (18 screen) ChangeThis manifesto on managing what I'd term "knowledge workers." It's a good piece (and a decent plug for his book) but it ignores one of the biggest issues in running these kinds of teams: not just keeping them moving, but keeping them headed in a direction that's aligned with their larger company.
In a small software company, this is not a huge problem -- folks who have signed on to work at a startup usually share at least the initial vision of the enterprise. But if that direction changes, or if the group is performing a narrowly focused function within a much larger organization, one of the most important functions of a manager is to keep his team's vision of their objectives aligned with the needs of the larger company. Failing to do so leads to fustration for team members, and failure for the team.
