IT Project Manager Nataliya Hradobyk shared tips that, in her opinion, can be effective in order to keep everything under control without unnecessary immersion in micromanagement.
IT Project Manager Nataliya Hradobyk shared tips that, in her opinion, can be effective in order to keep everything under control without unnecessary immersion in micromanagement.
According to her, a colleague approached her with a problematic situation on his project.
«Situation: The team is working on a high iteration approach (from release to release) and has daily sinks. But the format of the meetings is limited only to the discussion of the completed tasks, and the tasks at work are neglected,» she described the situation on her LinkedIn page.
The IT Project Manager, during a consultation with a colleague, identified two tools that can help in solving the problem.
Recommendation No. 1: change the format of sinks
Natalia Hradobyk proposed a classic format that is often used in Scrum, when each team member answers the following questions:
«This approach ensures transparency: the team discusses tasks, progress and possible problems. This helps the PM to keep his finger on the pulse, and contributes to the collective resolution of impediments,» the IT Project Manager is convinced.
Recommendation No. 2: Implementation of the Age Time metric
According to Natalia Hradobyk, the metric shows how many days tasks are in the works. She recommends collecting data twice a week, as well as paying attention to tasks that are in the works much longer than estimated.
Start to find out:
According to Natalia Hradobyk, these two tools will help PM maintain control over processes, relying on transparency and data, not on micromanagement.
Project manager Nina Donets added her colleague’s opinion: «It is important that the daily sync does not turn into hour-long meetings, where the entire team spends time on discussions that are not needed by everyone. According to classic Scrum, this meeting is regulated by the duration of 15 minutes… For discussions, I use separate meetings (as an option — to keep everyone interested after the meeting; hold a separate meeting with tech leaders — where everyone who has questions can come and ask them)».
«The blocker-focused daily syn format is a direct path from chaos to transparency. And Age Time is generally top! When you see how tasks „depend“, you can pull out problems from under the stones in time. My favorite method of avoiding micromanagement is retrospectives with the team: often the guys and girls themselves propose solutions that reduce the need for intervention,» comments Anna Shevchenko, a colleague of the Project Delivery Manager .
In his turn, Project/Sales manager Dmytro Fedotiuk, regarding the first point, notes that he practiced this, but, in his opinion, it once again distracts and helps only beginners. He tried to automate it through processes in Jira itself.
«Actually, there are many more solutions here, but this approach is also very ok,» he expressed his confusion regarding the second point.
