Yes, often businesses don't understand development... but... Us dev's have it drilled into us time and time again that we are so special and can't possibly be

Yes, often businesses don't understand development... but... Us dev's have it drilled into us time and time again that we are so special and can't possibly be expected to participate in the company as a whole (our time is too valuable! we can't stick to a schedule! they don't understand software!). That's a load of bullshit, developers don't get to wall off their private kingdom of code, same as no one else gets to wall off their section of responsibility and dictate outwards from within. Please stop furthering the (on that note) false dichotomy that programmers are either: 1) mismanaged by egregiously incompetent tyrants 2) given free reign to dictate to the business Software developers don't deserve any inherent respect. Their value added to the business does.