From InfoQ :
Micromanagement, often has a negative connotation associated with it. It is a management style where a manager closely observes or controls the work of his or her subordinates or employees. Usually Agile development and micromanagement may seem to be opposite ends of spectrum however, they are more related than what meets the eye.
Mike Cohn suggested that it is the dark secret of Agile that it is all about micromanagement. Mike mentioned that all practices of Agile support micromanagement. He suggested,
- The daily scrum is about micro-managing the team’s daily work plans and making sure that everyone is doing what they say they’ll do.
-
Continuous integration is put in place so that the minute some developer screws up and breaks a build, it becomes known.
-
Pair programming is about making sure that programmers don’t lose focus, don’t goldplate, don’t work on only the fun stuff, and that they clean things up.
Read full story here - http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/11/agile-micromanagement