As for their actual infrastructure: not having a version control system and a build system (e.g.: never deploying directly from the VCS) is a must for any size team and sometimes even for single developers. Thankfully, nowadays most people do use VCS's but build and deploy systems are largely at the level of glorified shell scripts at best.
Management is not excluded from this either. They have to:
1. know, in depth, the business they are in and the tools they use (or could use) to achieve their goals
2. listen to what their team tells them and provide an environment where they can do the job right
It sounds like there was a lot of micro-management and putting out fires in this case.