Sometimes, you just need to get on with the work. You need to give yourself some breathing room so you can think for a while. Here are some tips that will help you tackle the day-to-day management work:
- Schedule and conduct your one-on-ones. Being a manager means you make room for the people stuff: the one-on-ones, the coaching and feedback or the meta-coaching or the meta-feedback that you offer in the one-on-ones. Those actions are tactical and if you don’t do them, they become strategic.
- As a manager, make sure you have team meetings. No, not serial status meetings. Never those. Problem solving meetings, please. The more managers you manage, the more critical this step is. If you miss these meetings, people notice. They wonder what’s wrong with you and they make up stories. While the stories might be interesting, you do not want people making stories up about what is wrong with you or your management, do you?
- Stop multitasking and delegate. Your people are way more capable than you think they are. Stop trying to do it all. Stop trying to do technical work if you are a manager. Take pride in your management work and do the management work.
- Stop estimating on behalf of your people. This is especially true for agile teams. If you don’t like the estimate, ask them why they think it will take that long, and then work with them on removing obstacles.
- If you have leftover time, it’s time to work on the strategic work. What is the most important work you and your team can do? What is your number one project? What work should you not be doing? This is project portfolio management. You might find it difficult to make these decisions. But the more you make these decisions, the better it is for you and your group.
Okay, there are your five tips. Happy management.
