The book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward Deci may give you some answers. The key thing a "Knowledge Worker" needs/demands is Auto

The book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward Deci may give you some answers. The key thing a "Knowledge Worker" needs/demands is Autonomy over his own Work/Decisions (within the context of the larger problem). In the old days, we had the Freedom along with the Accountability. What Agile/Scrum has done is taken away our Freedom but by micromanaging our day-to-day activities has increased our Accountability. This is completely unjustifiable and unacceptable. PS: An organisation that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only - Bjarne Stroustrup.