How Micromanagement Kills Your Software Development Company
If you have to hire someone to work for you, either you don’t know how to do the person’s job or you don’t have time for that. So why would you try to micromanage someone if you don’t have the knowledge or the time to make it happen?
When talking about software development companies the question gets even funnier: Are you gonna teach your developer how to code or are you gonna spend your precious time checking if the developer is using spaces or tabs for code indentation?
What is micromanagement?
Micromanagement is to control or manage all the small parts of a development process in a way that is usually not wanted or that causes problems, especially with excessive attention to minor details. However, it is still commonly seen as an accepted management style worldwide, especially when it comes to managing new hires. Controlling is, for example, propose unachievable deadlines, constantly ask for time estimates and updates, introduce new priority tasks, ask to reuse solutions, etc. Sometimes, things get off track not because the developers are not working, but because you are not investing enough time and effort to effectively plan, track and allocate resources at your company.
Any kind of job that requires creativity isn’t like manufacturing. If you need people to keep your business growing, you have to learn how to inspire and motivate them to give the best they can in order to achieve collaborative success.
How to avoid this to happen?
First of all, make sure your company’s hiring process is great. Count on an amazing HR professional or agency to make sure you are only hiring top-notch professionals to work with you. Your company should be going after top-shelf, A-level candidates who are proactive.
Once you have the peace of mind that you have the right team working with you, you can choose guidance over micromanagement and you don’t have to teach them how to do their job. If it’s a new hire, the person will need support to learn about the company and, after the adaptation phase, it’s all about how well structured your processes are, good communication and, trust. Let people suggest the best ways to keep things organized and meet realistic deadlines.
Then, give your employees freedom of work and, if they don’t know what to do with their freedom, look for someone else who does. Don’t ever react to failure by putting in more process and control. In order to achieve your goals, it’s far better to give high-level requirements and allow your team to split them as they feel then losing them.
Finally, a team does need structured processes. With the lack of management, people will be in constant pain because no one is in sync and tasks are being forgotten. If you feel everything is all over the place and you are feeling overwhelmed, build a work plan or give a step in the right direction and hire a project manager who is an expert in time management and gives a good amount of autonomy to the team without letting them be completely structureless.
Moreover, getting a customized time management mobile app focused on your business needs could be a great solution to this problem. Time management applications give you reports to track time, resources and, help to gather enough data to start planning changes in order to improve processes, productivity and, boost motivation. When developing mobile applications for businesses, time management features are the most requested as you can easily get all the stats in the palm of your hand, plan the changes needed and see the results of the implementation instantly. Every step of the business growth process inside the same tool.
You build people and then people build your business
In conclusion, if you still believe that micromanagement is good for your business, at least now you are aware that you are demoralizing your team, so be ready to lose not only all those nice developers you’ve hired but also their respect. Growing a company takes creativity, especially if your business growth also relies on investing in innovation. A culture of innovation is built by people, so the best way to promote creativity is giving freedom and build a culture that everyone has the chance to grow together. When the culture is good, you will get developers who grow along with the company and have an overall positive impact on the success of your business.
If this topic interests you, here’s a good article to read about other devastating effects of micromanagement.
