I just finished reading an article called The Hidden Workplace from the July 23, 2007 Fortune magazine. A lot of it deals with who do you go to in order to get your work done. My experience is that QA often becomes a very prominent node in such a hierarchy, whether they are supposed to be that way or not, because we are the ones who have to use the product as a whole, not just a specific portion or silo the way developers often do. Sometimes it is just one person in the group.

Understanding the dynamics of these informal social networks is invaluable from a management perspective and I can see also how they would be useful on a personal one.

Its a good article, go read it.