Control Projects, Not People

Andrea Brockmeier is the Director of Project Management at Watermark Learning. She has 20+ years of experience in project management practice and training.

  Stakeholder Management   Talent Management   Teams   ProjectsAtWork  

Maintaining control of your project is a good thing. Controlling people is not. Still, you need your team members to provide reasonable status updates on their work. So how do you “trust but verify” without crossing the line of managing the project to micromanaging the people?

Project managers often walk a fine line between controlling projects and controlling the people on their teams. Particularly when working with team members with technical expertise, it’s frustrating to be kept at arm’s length when making reasonable inquiries about progress or status updates. However, when you start telling people how to do their jobs instead of focusing on the results they create, it is usually an indication that you have stepped beyond the bounds of project control and into the realm of people control.

Some team members are quite adept at complicating this tidy distinction. What about, for example, the team member who tells you they will get the work done on time but sees no need to share details regarding the steps involved or how they’re going to get it done?

Even if it’s someone you have previously worked with and have every confidence that they’ll meet their deadline, it’s conceivable that you need more information about what’s involved in accomplishing the work. Perhaps for reporting or tracking purposes,…

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