Why is this especially a concern with more senior teams? Because many senior people are often much better able to rise to the occasion of contributing to solving hard problems when the team environment both allows and encourages them to do so; and they are often the most likely to get bent out of shape and experience falling productivity when their manager starts to give detailed input on how to spend each minute of day.

I saw a recent blog post that was nicely on point to this issue, from the PM Alliance. I excerpt it below, but the slightly longer piece is worth the read as well here.

Credit: iStockPhoto.com

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8 Ways to Banish Your Inner Micromanager

By PM Alliance President, April 2, 2011

1 – Stop hovering. If you find yourself peering over a teammate’s shoulder, step back …

2 – Ask fewer questions. That’s right—instead of assuming that you need to request every bit of data you want, you should be relying on your team to keep you informed proactively [and holding them accountable for doing so]…

3 – Delegate more. Micromanagers are famous for giving tasks away without ever really letting go, and sometimes for not giving tasks away at all…

4 – Stick to working hours. Some projects require overtime, but constantly pulling employees’ brains back to work after they’ve gone home is just a variation of hovering…

5 – Empower your team. Are your employees forced to seek approval for every decision, from the big stuff all the way down to day-to-day minutiae? Set up a process that instills responsibility and grants authority based on each staff member’s seniority and experience.

6 – Watch your temper. Getting overly upset or losing your cool with employees is a classic sign of a micromanager. It frequently leads to hovering and incessant questioning, both of which you want to avoid. When you feel something isn’t going well, stop. Take a minute, gather your composure…

7 – Take mistakes in stride. Glitches are the siren song of the micromanager—they make it easy to doubt your team’s abilities, assume you have to do everything yourself, and generally make life miserable for those around you. Remember that mistakes happen to the best of us…

8 – Don’t let your boss bring you down. If your boss is a micromanager (or perhaps just a difficult personality), you may find yourself offloading stress by funneling your frustration and anger into your team. It’s a tough position to be in, but you somehow need to separate the way you’re being treated from how you treat your team…

As I said at the start, this is just an excerpt; the whole article is worth reading at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/project-management-tips/8-ways-to-banish-your-inner-micromanager-45275 BTW, the PMAlliance, Inc. is a project management consulting, project management training and project office development company that helps Fortune 1000 companies improve the execution of their mission-critical projects.

Now that I have your attention, I promise no more military references. But I also promise that reading on will force a gut check of your testing awareness. Today is a re-blog and it’s an oldie but goodie. One of those that makes you laugh lightly when you read it, but deep down in your core you know most of it rings true and hints at your organization’s flaws. Its title: The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code implies that that the target audience is developers…but those of us who are always on the lookout for motive know that the post was likely intended to be used as ammunition (sorry… incentive)for PMs to get budget to upgrade their defect tracking software or hire another testing resource.

More thoughts on this blog:

• Giggling at the Netscape references may date you.

• The writing style is entertaining enough that your peers will read it all the way through and so will your developers, after which they will initiate much conversation about how you can help them do their job better. Be sure to tell them that improvement takes time, and unless you are a hard-core Commercial house, a score of 8 or above on ‘The Joel Test’ is perfectly respectable for the moment.

• Each question is open to interpretation; everyone’s definition of quiet or up-to-date is different. Bottom line: if your score is lower than 6, then you now know what needs to be done!

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

Post your score and any related *issues* here so everyone can discuss how to improve the testing model within your organization.

Many Project Managers begin a project by writing up a ‘to do’ list of activities for each team member.  Within weeks the list is out of date, the project has evolved and more time is spent keeping the list up to date rather than doing the work. The Work Breakdown Structure starts by writing a NOT ‘to do’ list. Forget about activities and look at key deliverables.  Each person is responsible to achieving different aspects of the task - how they get their is often irrelevant.  It is reaching the desired outcome in the assigned time frame that propels a project forward.

To read more, click here.