Hmm. I think there are two characteristics of software development that make it a special case.
Firstly the error rate. We make 'mistakes' (bugs) all the time, how many other professions have a dedicated QA department dedicated day in, day out entirely to catching error. Yes there's audit, but most departments only even talk to them a few times a year.
Then there's the issue that the problem domain, and the design you're trying to implement, is often very poorly understood or at least documented and specified, even by the domain experts commissioning the project. This is the whole reason we have agile.
Between squashing bugs and constantly course correcting on the direction of development, I think some of the micromanaging makes sense. There's a heck of a lot of very unstable micro that needs managing. As has been mentioned already, the nearest analogy I can come up with is medicine, particularly for critical patients with poorly understood conditions. I think a great, if completely fictional example can be seen in the frequent discussions going on between the medics in 'House'. They're constantly putting their heads together and white-boarding cases, though in reality such discussions are I'm sure much rarer than the show makes out.
Firstly the error rate. We make 'mistakes' (bugs) all the time, how many other professions have a dedicated QA department dedicated day in, day out entirely to catching error. Yes there's audit, but most departments only even talk to them a few times a year.
Then there's the issue that the problem domain, and the design you're trying to implement, is often very poorly understood or at least documented and specified, even by the domain experts commissioning the project. This is the whole reason we have agile.
Between squashing bugs and constantly course correcting on the direction of development, I think some of the micromanaging makes sense. There's a heck of a lot of very unstable micro that needs managing. As has been mentioned already, the nearest analogy I can come up with is medicine, particularly for critical patients with poorly understood conditions. I think a great, if completely fictional example can be seen in the frequent discussions going on between the medics in 'House'. They're constantly putting their heads together and white-boarding cases, though in reality such discussions are I'm sure much rarer than the show makes out.