[choeger]

Agile as you observe it ist just double speak for micromanagement in my experience.

What we experience is a caste of highly paid managers that a) don't understand the work their subordinates are doing, b) don't trust them and thus c) cannot understand the risks of a project for their personal careers.

Their, quite ingenious, response is "agile": Micromanage everything to mitigate b), but wrap that micromanagement in a "industry standard" process that hides everything behind double speak (scrum). In particular put an emphasis on the point that "the team decides" and "there are no deadlines in agile", while essentially driving all decisions informally (e.g., by prioritizing the backlog) and enforcing deadlines whenever you see fit. Thus, there's no overt responsibility left for a manager, effectively eliminating c).