always calling the shots

I'm happy to report that it's not always that way. In my current team, the shots are called by our project manager. The project manager is a comp sci type, not an MBA type. They previously worked as a software engineer for a decade or so before being promoted to project manager. They even take some of the technical debt stories (and other quick low point stories) themselves when they're free.

One of our senior devs thought of a more automated way to implement one of our existing working processes and the project manager let him work on rewriting that for over two sprints.