Micromanagement a necessary evil?

What is Micromanagement and who are these micro managers? Well, to put things simply, folks who are
involved too much in your work, seemingly robbing you of the freedom to act independently, and also
happen to be your managers ;) and what they do is Micro Management. Ok no more, breaking things
down.

So back to the story, There had been a few occasions when we had someone practice this, let us call him
M1 for conversations sake. The reaction me and my friend had was, "this is a reeeally bad practice, and
is not at all healthy for the project".

Over the last year, I also happened to witness a case, where another manager, let us call this person M2,
seemed way too confident with his team, and rarely or let us say never god town to understanding how
and what was the team operating on. This ended up very frequently in situations where there were last
minute rushes to the scene, unnecessary delays to the delivery, or let us say, Fire-Fighting mode.

So the question was,

Did M1, over do it, was only the results that mattered to him, his team was constantly looking for other
options within the org and outside,

If the M2, had actually, embraced a bit of micro management, could the results have been better for his
project, and himself. Did he put too much trust on his team to deliver without his intervention. The end
result on the team front, wasn't too different here, the team had to be disbanded and some had to move
out of the org. Was this the legendary "100 ways to ruin a project" implementation, i had heard of? I
wonder!

So to sum it up, my question was, Is Micro Management good, and if yes, to what extent, If not, why
does it even exist.

Thanks to chats with a few of my other friends (not just manager friends:)) and a bit of reading here and
there

Micromanagement is good

Yes, you heard me right, Good, In some cases, (but also bad in most)

• When the team is fresh, and has no experience whatsoever, either on the technology or the
domain front, team seeks direction
• When the team has not worked together in earlier scenarios and again, has very little
experience, team needs assistance with collaboration
• When the manager has more in depth experience with the project objective at hand, on a
domain front, and is very sure that the team lacks this understanding, team needs expertise
• There are too much egos flying within the team (this is like pretty much like being on a ground
getting flooded with Molten Lava, tread carefully), team needs proper planning, guidance and
authority to be established
Micromanagement is bad
 • Bad, I repeat, Bad, in most cases
• When the team has worked well together in the past on a similar project, and delivered
successfully, Team needs the manager to step in only when they need
• When the team has better understanding of the domain and the technology than the manager,
Team needs the manager for creating ppts and excels!
• When the manager is an outsider to the team, team needs the manager to understand them
first before anything else
• When the team is highly motivated and self driven and has clear understanding of the project
goal (case study for agile?), Team needs a manager to manage scope, cost, schedule (and a
scrum master, if i may recommend)
• When the team has more experience in delivering projects of similar nature in the past than the
manager, the team needs he manager to get up to speed
So how much is too much

Micromanagement is not a one stop shop for all your problems, everything comes with a definite
timeline - Project Management 101, seriously! The above statement is!

Once the team has evolved and is able to perform with minimum friction, the manager has to take a step
back (Remember forming–storming–norming–performing)

Once the team has got better understanding of the domain and how-to, stop micro managing, the team
hates it

In simple words, give your team the freedom to perform, give them a direction to a common objective,
whenever you see that the team direction is not uniform, step in, but don't over do

Only when you see that the common goal is nowhere in sight, or the team has no idea of what is
expected from them as a team, in terms of delivery and team behavior, does it really make sense to put
on your tough guy act, and unleash your micromanagement skills. But again caution, DO NOT OVERDO
IT.

Some steps how you could actually micro manage and not look like a tyrant

• Educate each one on how they add value to the team and the objective, some teams like to be
interacted as a group and some individually, cater as per choice
• Follow up with the team members regularly on where they stand, and if they need any help,
provide it.
• Provide regular feedback.
• If there is trouble between team members, sense it and get it resolved. You might not always
get your team members rushing to you for help
• Take regular feedback, and act on it. Unfortunately, everyone needs course correction and so do
managers.
End goal for the manager is to ensure smooth sailing for the entire team. Trust your team to make the
right decisions when provided with the right direction.

So was the M1 bad, turns out, surprisingly No, the project was successful, but yeah, too much result
driven approach.
Was M2 bad, no again, was too team oriented. Manage as per the need of the hour.