7 Sins of Project Management. The First Sin: Micromanagement

The negative impact of micromanagement on the software development process

Redeemed creativeness

Learned helplessness

Fear of failure and no feedback

Staff turnover

When micromanagement can be useful

Crisis management

Careful onboarding and support

Micromanagement at some stages of development

Why remote bosses turn into ‘helicopters’

Poor remote team management skills. The fear that no one works at home;

Belief that the teams are not able to manage their work and time effectively;

No clear plan. Instead of working according existing deadlines, the manager constantly reviews the progress. This turns the life of remote employees into a permanent deadline;

Personal qualities of a project manager (perfectionism, nervousness, authoritarianism, etc.);

Surprisingly, popular agile practices played a rather negative role in justifying overcontrol. Helicopter managers focus their attention on one from the 12 agile principles: “Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers”. Very close.

How to understand that you have fallen into the sin of micromanagement

You are in charge of operational tasks. There is no time to think about the strategy;

You believe that all team members should always be present during all meetings and know about the smallest details of the project, even if these details aren’t connected to their tasks directly;

During the meetings, your team talks about the process, not about the results;

You prefer to ask the team members about current issues in person rather than checking the status of the tasks in Trello, Jira, etc.;

You demand progress reports several times a day;

You cannot delegate tasks because “no one can do it but you”;

You can't go on vacation because “everything will fall apart”;

You are always ready to advise on the work of any team member;

You get anxious when someone makes a decision without consulting you;

New ideas in the running projects seem like a waste of time and budget and a distraction from the main task;

You discuss employee’s mistakes during common meetups so that others could learn a lesson;

You believe that any employee can be replaced if necessary;

You’re afraid that now, when everyone is sitting at home and doing their work without your presence, the need for you as a manager is lower.

What if "I'm a helicopter"?

Build communication processes within the team at the employee-employee level;

Develop clear, detailed requirements using which every employee can check their work themselves;

Delegate and enable growth. Yes, everyone has become their own manager at home. But this is a great opportunity to grow your team's competencies. This makes you a good manager, too;

Work through your fears and distrust. Your colleagues are professionals in their field, and if you constantly question their work, then why were they hired in the first place?

Give enough space and time for feedback and respond constructively to it;

See the software development process as a process of creation and discovery, not mindless copying. The process in which errors are hardly avoidable;

Understand that as a manager, you are also a member of the team. Your value is to see the whole picture, and not to split it into puzzles. Your task is to control the results, communicate with the team, develop strategies for the future, and be helpful.

Wrapping up