Any small to a mid-sized company using a remote dev team can avoid management mistakes. In general, most slips take place in these four management areas:
- Style
- Tasks
- Performance
- Recognition
You can take a look at some articles about some techniques for App Developers at Media coverage. The people in charge have first to accept they can have them. As a result, they will be able to catch themselves when they incur in a given mistake and take action. However, until they develop a particular leadership skill set, you will have to rely on somebody coaching them.
Moreover, partnering with an IT staffing company can help you leverage by getting such coaching or experienced managers. That’s why we will be reviewing this topic. Please keep reading to know the details on how to spot mistakes and have a tip to circumvent them.
Style
The most ineffective form of management is when your manager tries to control every little aspect; it is called Micromanagement. A manager needs to trust his devs and respect their expertise. Otherwise, it will have a negative impact because it reveals a lack of trust in their abilities and will derive in restraint of freedom.
If you’re unsure whether your manager might be micromanaging, here is a small quiz to let you know:
- Is he monitoring every step of the dev process?
- Does he get angry when devs decide for themselves?
- Is he requesting for overly granular reports?
Having answered yes to these questions above could mean a chance for your manager to try giving a fair degree of autonomy to the devs, and thus finding the right balance between surveillance and freedom.
Tasks
Your manager will do either two things when assigning dev tasks:
- Allow the dev to select his development tasks at will,
- Decide himself who does what activity arbitrarily.
To avoid management mistakes, he first has to choose a development methodology, adhere to it, and let the team know how to apply such a method. The manager must be smart enough to detect and be aware of the dev’s specific abilities. As a result, a dev can achieve more when he does tasks he understands better, and that is according to his level of expertise.
Performance
Most managers keep a record of worked hours to measure performance, but that is not the best indicator to say an employee is performing well or poorly. Instead, a manager can measure a dev’s performance using milestones and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Using KPIs allows the dev’s efforts to align with the business goals and provides an accurate overview of progress.
👉 How to measure the ROI of your IT Outsourced Software Development Team
Recognition
People in general need from time to time a pat in the back for their results. Stealing credit for those results can be a very toxic thing for a manager to do. These are some of the reasons why managers could do this:
- Having an inferiority complex and feeling threatened by devs performance,
- Wanting to impress his boss,
- Seeing the developer’s result as a consequence of his work and taking ownership.
To avoid recognition mistakes, your manager must observe that:
- It is his responsibility to establish clear goals,
- To give them credit for achieving such goals,
- And to treat devs failures as his own.
Recognition is needed to reduce attrition. However, remote dev teams pose a harder challenge because of their nature. A remote manager is not able to see face-to-face is devs as he would in an office. Consequently, developing leadership skills becomes harder.
Conclusion
Let’s suppose your managers keep making the mistakes above. Moreover, you are likely out of time or budget to get experienced managers. If this is true, it is time probably time to consider reaching out for help to assist you to find experienced managers that know how to avoid these common mistakes.
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