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• It makes her feel very important, because nothing gets done without her.
• It allows her to feel superior to everyone who works for her.
• She gets to steal her team’s thunder, taking credit for all of their accomplishments while
blaming them for any failures.

Her micromanagement has a devastating impact on the people who work for her. They
feel that they have no responsibility whatsoever for what they do. They are not trusted. If
they produce poor work, she will fix it, usually without explaining what they did wrong
and often without even telling them. They feel like they do not have any impact, positive
or negative, on the final product. And they’re right.
Many people will put up with this situation for a long time. They can continue to collect a
paycheck. The job that they do is not particularly stressful, because any work that does not
meet the organization’s standards will be redone for them. They are not trusted to set pri-
orities, make decisions, or do any aspect of their jobs. This is very inefficient for the orga-
nization, and very demotivating for the team members. While they will tolerate the
situation, the team members are neither challenged nor fulfilled. Meanwhile, their man-
ager is drowning under all of the work. Nobody is happy with this situation.
There are a few easy rules that will help you avoid micromanagement:

Don’t expect to review everything
Many people think that to be an effective manager, you have to have read, reviewed,
and redone all of the work of the people who work for you. A good manager will spot-
check the team’s output, but reviewing (and possibly redoing) every piece of work that
the team creates is a terrible use of a manager’s time. Delegation requires trust; if you
do not trust your team to do their jobs, then you should fire them and replace them
with people who you do trust (or don’t replace them, so the organization does not have
to pay their salaries).
Don’t fall into the “hands-on manager” trap
There is a general perception in the technology world that management is not an
actual job. It’s often believed that competent engineers manage themselves, while
their incompetent “pointy-haired” bosses just get in the way. This is simply untrue.

Competent engineers can be trusted to produce good requirements, designs, test
plans, and code; their focus is not on prioritizing or managing teams of people. They
can’t do your job for you, so don’t try to do theirs for them.
Many managers assume that because they are responsible for the work that their team
produces, they should be able to do all of it. That’s just not true—the individual team
members have time to build up their expertise in developing the software, while you
only have time to manage the project. Instead of trying to fill in as a technical team
member, work on building up your project management skills.
Use transparency to your advantage
Some people fall into the trap of thinking that the job of project manager consists of con-
stantly bugging each team member for status reports. Team members have trouble with

248 CHAPTER TEN