> senior management has just discovered DevOps & Agile, and now everyone has been told to do DevOps, but without breaking up the top-down communication style
I'd argue that they haven't discovered Agile, although they might think they have. The whole point is to disrupt these traditional ways of working.
The theme across agile implementations is control over what's taken on and accountability for what gets done at very high granularity. The whole thing about breaking up complex stories into subtasks is do not abstract away any details from me, I want to know everything.
It's hard to imagine this being a less top down communication style. What are you comparing it to?
I'd argue that they haven't discovered Agile, although they might think they have. The whole point is to disrupt these traditional ways of working.