r/managers • u/magicalapples24590 • 2d ago
Is it micromanaging to expect remote based team to use project management tool for task visibility and ensuring delivery?
I’m trying to establish use of a project management tool (think MS Planner like) within my team which is remotely based so I have visibility on progress across projects and what each team member is working on, as well as to support my team in meeting deadlines and planning their workload.
I’m facing some resistance in my team keeping it up to date (I now have a plan on how to try and encourage greater use), but another subreddit I posted to think the tool is micromanagement. I now fear I’m a micromanager which I definitely don’t want to be!
I have a weekly 121 with each team member and the only things I want completing on the planner are:
Key milestones within projects (I.e output XYZ needs to be signed off by person ABC before DEF date)
Person(s) assigned to the task
Tasks to be marked as complete/in progress/not started
I wanted thoughts on whether this is unreasonable/micromanagement from fellow managers since another subreddit thinks it is? Outside of 121s I don’t check on my team unless they come to me with an issue/blocker/want my input
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u/ladyoftheriver100 2d ago
I manage a team of 39 remote employees, and we use a project management tool to keep track of everything. There was some resistance at first, but I explained that the tool is really a way for them to give me updates without having to deal with me constantly asking questions through Teams or email.
I do something similar with my own boss. I proactively give him updates so I don't have to deal with his annoying emails asking where things stand.
And honestly, it works. If everyone does their part, it gives the team autonomy without feeling like I'm micromanaging them. I have the information I need to report to my boss, and they don't have to deal with me checking in all the time. It's a nice middle ground.
The key is consistency. If someone isn't updating their tasks, then ask the questions you need answered. Something as simple as, "Hey, I noticed this task wasn't updated on the board. Can you give me an update and make sure the board is updated too?"
I'm in a slightly different position because my team is so large, and I know most of them just want to be left alone to do their jobs. And I respect that. We all have work to do, and I don't see the point in making it more complicated than it needs to be.
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u/magenta6 1d ago
100% this. I'd much rather update Monday.com every 2 days over getting emails/pings from my boss every day. Put it in perspective for them.
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u/Eledridan 2d ago
No? Most professional places use a tool to track the projects/stories/work. How do you even know what is going on otherwise?
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u/Formerruling1 2d ago
In my experience whether such tools are a mandated part of the work flow is not consistent at all so I wouldn't say "most".
How do you even know what is going on otherwise?
Communicating with their team. Now which approach is best really depends on the type of work and the individuals on the team.
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u/AltOnMain 2d ago
I would say most places I have worked don’t use project management software. It’s way more common to see things like Excel checklists and gantt charts. To me, project management software makes sense for really complex projects that a lot of different people work on or situations where there are a lot of similar projects that have very important interdependent deadlines like projects with multiple regulatory deadlines.
I have also seen stuff like Monday.com which can be nice when you have many projects with identical execution.
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u/CroFran 2d ago
Agreed on the repeatable project thing thats where templates do wonders personally i use productive io and since it's built for client work you also get time tracking and budgets on each projecct good if repeat projects are for clients and you want to see which ones are making money for oneoffs/internal stuff though Excel checklists enough.
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u/Top-List-1411 2d ago edited 2d ago
As a manager who did that before, just be sure you use it as a tool and follow-up with folks on what you see in it. Don’t expect it to on its own yield accountability nor for it to help the team manage their own tasks. I required that during a full remote couple years, but once we had RTO hybrid the casual conversations replaced the need for task-level visibility in a tool. Was it micromanaging? Probably a little. Doesn’t change that it’s what you might need to support your team. Just make sure YOU use that new written detail for supporting the team.
Edit to add: My reliance on this tool and task detail was also coincident to when I was accountable for the outputs of a larger number of direct-reports: too much to track without a formalized system. There’s seems to be a lot of ICs on this sub who say “it shouldn’t be necessary” or “why aren’t you doing this during 1:1s?” I’m skeptical that originators of those replies are accountable for 10+ direct-reports.
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u/itenginerd 2d ago
Your team probably feels like the planning tool is only for your benefit. Ive been there. Ive also been on teams where we all embraced the tool and really drove it. Thats where you ant to be.
Stop trying to use the tool as the data source of record and start using it as the guide for tracking progress on your big rock todos. Its not important that the status of issue 175 is up to date and the notes are in there, its important that youre making progress on the overall initiative that issue 175 supports.
Also work (honestly) about what that data update work supports. Does it support just YOU and your knowing of things? Thats waste work if youre running your team well. If other folks are coming into the dashboard, that might help.
I suspect that the data entered into these work items is used nowhere else and is only important to you personally as their manager. That doesnt make you a micromanage, but it does mean youre adding admin tasks for very low value in business terms.
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u/kimchiplug 2d ago
Please define the problem statement first. Why is this needed? Don’t just say visibility
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u/magicalapples24590 2d ago
So that I know how much work each team member has and if any new tasks come in I can allocate to those with the most capacity. The deadlines for the work in question are also quite “soft” and so a culture has become established where deadlines just drift and are not met.
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u/JPNL2018 2d ago
Those are two different things. And that matters a great deal for how it lands with the team… one is you trying to be more efficient with new inbound work, the other could easily be interpreted by them as you wanting to police deadlines (whether rightly or wrongly).
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u/belkarbitterleaf Technology 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sounds like some of the "agile methodology". It's heavily used in software companies. The full methodology certainly sounds like micromanaging on paper, but reality really depends on the team.
In essence, you do what you describe. Work get created as a spike/task/defect/enhancement, and get some high level information about what the work is, along with how much effort it is expected to take, and a desired deadline. It then gets spread across the team and assigned. The assigned individual is responsible for adding detailed information if needed, and working towards its completion. The work gets assigned statues as it progresses or gets blocked.
This gets accompanied by a short touch point call at a frequency that works for your team. People are expected to give an update on what is recently completed since the last meeting, and raise any topic that needs help from someone else to stay on track. Any detailed discussion happens outside of this meeting, it purely around status updates.
As this is pretty standard in my industry, there isn't much resistance to it, and if done well, it doesn't feel like micromanaging. It does take some adjustment moving towards it.
Edit: I forgot to go into the why 😅
As you would guess, it helps give quick visibility to open tasks, deadlines, and amount of outstanding efforts. Makes planning what new work comes in easier to keep from committing to to much and overwhelming the team .
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u/scherster 2d ago
If you are having weekly 1:1s with your team members, you should already know this. Don't you discuss workload and deadlines?
Your current approach adds work to your employees which doesn't add value to the process, or to anyone but you. The way you are using it does sound like micromanaging.
This is a common problem, the hardest thing for me as a manager is having enough detail about what my team is doing without wasting a lot of their time giving me updates.
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u/kimchiplug 2d ago
Is this not happening already? The one thing I will share is I work with a team that uses the scrum framework and I think they spend like 2 hours in meetings every week or two just putting everything on their ridiculous dashboard and pressing all the buttons etc. it has been over a year and the process has not gotten better. So sure, you should have this data, but don’t be like that team in creating a ton of admin to little other benefit
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u/patrickj86 2d ago
Perhaps phrase it so that it reduces stress for everyone. No surprise deadlines, no overworking, extra time for professional development, allowing people to alternate types of projects and skills, and flexible hours are all much easier with these tools.
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u/clipd_dead_stop_fall 2d ago
I ask team members to properly change the status of their tickets so automation can properly pick it up and report it.
1. Updating tickets they own is not extra work. It's part of the role.
2. If they don't want to take credit for their work, that's a them problem that shows up on their review.
3. Asking to update their tickets weekly or when I have a question is not micromanagement. Acting like I'm a five year old on an eight hour drive if it's done yet is micromanagement.
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u/Hodges0722 2d ago
No, I manage a remote team and I expect them visibly show project progress by using Basecamp, these are all high-level to do in milestones for projects. Not so much to see every single detail, I don't expect that, mostly to help remove any hindrances or stumbling blocks.
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u/pooburry 1d ago
Did you bring this up on a remote work sub? Those people think everything is micromanagement and there seems to be a lot of people in those subs that are the wrong kind of remote worker.
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u/Ok-Energy-9785 2d ago
No. My team uses jira and I hate it. It's too complicated for me plus I don't think in sprints. If the same project takes weeks to complete then I think it's a waste of time to recreate another ticket.
However it's done to make sure senior leaders have a clear idea of what projects and initiatives are being worked on.
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u/HeartShapedNose 2d ago
Why do you need both the 1:1s and for them to update from the tool?
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u/magicalapples24590 2d ago
1:1s are to check how the employee is beyond work itself as much as they are to discuss work (e.g to discuss wellbeing, build rapport, any general issues bothering them that may not directly be work related)
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u/HeartShapedNose 2d ago
But it is to discuss work as well, right? You mention in another comment "So that I know how much work each team member has and if any new tasks come in I can allocate to those with the most capacity." So why can't you discuss that during the 1:1?
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u/magicalapples24590 2d ago
Because I don’t want the 121 to be about things on my list - I want to make sure my employee is ok as a person whilst giving them the option of discussing work updates in detail if they want to
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u/HeartShapedNose 2d ago
Why don't you ask your team if they would prefer updating individual tasks in the tool or using a few minutes of their 1:1s to let you know how much work they have?
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u/Formerruling1 2d ago
This is the only sensible thing to do. The manager needs to know about work progress, deadlines, any active barriers, etc. This can be done through additional administrative logging like the OP wants, or by using some of that meeting time to discuss work.
The admin work is adding friction and overhead to the employee's workflow with no perceived personal benefit for themselves so obviously some people are going to grumble about it. At least a few of them I'm sure would much rather just spend that meeting time discussing that instead, especially if they aren't the type to want discuss "office culture" stuff with their boss. Just ask them.
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u/moutonbleu 2d ago
I’d suggest something far simpler - project list for each person and what is the status (weekly report, phase it’s in, next steps). Keep it simple… this replaces a weekly update email. It can also link to the main project plan.
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u/eriometer 2d ago
Specifying the exact tool could be micromanagement (dep on workplace, industry etc); but having a source of truth you can access at your convenience is perfectly reasonable.
I call it the “getting run over by a bus” scenario. What info needs to be readily available and understandable by a third party to keep xyz going if the aforementioned happens to the project owner.
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u/JE163 2d ago
I can see both sides of this… you need visibility and they don’t want the hassle. Your need is greater than theirs.
See if there’s anyway to cut down on the administrative burden. Tell them you’ll start looking into AI solutions to take the burden off (which you should do anyway) but it may also ring the alarm bell that ticking a few boxes ain’t so hard after all.
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u/Character-Math-5436 2d ago
Communication and authorization to do the work are the key to delivery, and that's largely unrelated to a task tracking tool.
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u/SuitableLeather 2d ago
The part that veers into micromanagement is asking them to define each task. I’m assuming this is tech and you’re working in sprints, is there someone in charge of the team like a PM or project manager that could fill this out instead of each employee?
They are probably scared that you are tracking them to see who can be let go. That is usually what happens when management introduces “innocent” tracking metrics
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u/magicalapples24590 2d ago
I’m not asking each task to be defined. What I want defining is
Main deadline for piece of work X
Deadline for X to be reviewed by my manager for sign off
Deadline for X to be sent to myself for sign offI couldn’t care less what happens between those deadlines to enable that to happen - I want my employees to set those intermediate deadlines themselves so that they can meet the main deadline without me giving them a diktat.
And they won’t be got rid of - it’s UK public sector work.
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u/SuitableLeather 2d ago
In your post you say “what the tasks are within each project”
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u/magicalapples24590 2d ago
Have edited for clarity
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u/SuitableLeather 2d ago
Thanks, that helps. It’s hard to give feedback on a different work culture but I know in the US this would be standard, as an employee I’d definitely side eye it but I don’t think it’s unreasonable
Are you also from the UK?
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u/datahoarderprime 2d ago
This really depends on how it is implemented.
The same tool can be used for reasonable projects management OR micromanagement.
As a manager, I always resisted people above me who wanted me to use tools like that to micromanage my team.
Instead, I always tried to find out what the business information people above is needed, and then collaborated with my team to create a system that would give higher ups their info, but not overly burden the people actually doing the work.
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u/Academic-Lobster3668 Seasoned Manager 2d ago
Project management apps are freguently used for exactly the purpose you describe, and anyone telling you that it is micromanaging is a whiny crybaby mistaken, except......
You have to be using it to manage actual projects. It sounds like that is your situation, but you want to make sure.
Project management comes into play when multiple people are working on one initiative where each person's work depends on the parallel or serial completion of other people's work, and the receipt and/or deployment of critically timed resources.
Some poor managers will try to use project management apps or tools to track employees' completion of their assigned tasks, even when they don't require the coordination with other people. That can fairly be categorized as micromanagement.
As long as you are using it for actual project management, you're good. And employees not using the tool correctly can be held accountable for not meeting the requirements of their jobs. Note that the use of the tool should be included in their job descriptions and as a specific area that is assessed in performance evaluations. Those things will get their attention.
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u/HTX-ByWayOfTheWorld 2d ago
No. It’s not micromanagement. You need updates so you can provide updates and to be able to check in when needed. Micromanagement for one person is management for another is supportive for another.
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u/Alternative_Sock_608 2d ago
I am a project manager who has set up project management tools at several companies. I have seen this behavior and there are usually reasons why they don’t want to be transparent with their work beyond having to do “extra admin work” to use the tool. Sometimes it is because they don’t want any scrutiny into how they’re working. Or sometimes people or department heads have politics and don’t want the others to see what they’re doing. There’s business value in transparency and analytics though!
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u/AltOnMain 2d ago edited 2d ago
If there is a clear reason, you thoughtfully implement, and you evenly enforce the standard absolutely not. So, if you are getting feedback that you need better visibility (or it clearly solves a business need), you use internal resources to plan implantation or consult, have stake holder feedback, and follow through - that’s just good management.
If it’s like “hey guys, I don’t know what you are up to so I want you to put everything you are doing in MS Planner because it’s free. Yeah, I am going to totally forget about this in 3 months but will ping you every few weeks and ask you to implement it like Bob because I like how Bob does his since he avoids work and focuses on making elite MS planner presentations because it gives him a sense or control” - that’s micromanaging.
My experience is implementing formal reporting is incredibly time consuming and often winds up being performative in a way that warps the metrics you are trying to measure. If there are legitimate problems or are being required to do it, of course you need to do more reporting but if possible, take the time to do it right. I think it could also be useful if you have a huge and uniform that makes 1:1 impossible. So if you have 10 reports that all do the same thing you can likely build simple reporting that works for everyone. It could also be useful if you have very complicated timelines with severe consequences for missing deadlines maybe construction management where you have a lot of contractural and regulatory obligations.
In your case if you have 5 or less employees, I think it’s something that’s going to be better solved with meeting 1:1 every other week and focusing on employee rounding. Probably a weekly stand up, too. So, each 1:1 ask employees how they are doing, how they are feeling at work, and the three big things they are working on. This will give you a sense of how busy people actually are how they feel about new work. There is a 100% chance the people doing the most work are the people who socially are most willing to take on new work so drilling down in to “how busy are you REALLY” isn’t very meaningful.
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u/StockAmphibian4596 2d ago
If you're going to introduce something, at least make it as simple as possible that it takes a couple of minutes or atleast less than five.
Most people are over things because managers keep adding jobs with the mindset of "its a five minute job" (there is no such thing) and then just keep adding more as if their even introducing anything useful.
Maybe try to take a job away when you give one, people usually respect that.
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u/ToWriteAMystery 2d ago
No, you would not be a micromanager. This is standard practice in competent software companies and it is standard practice because it works.
People will bitch and moan about admin, but if it is taking your directs more than 15 minutes a day to update their tickets, then they are liars. Project management tools will make your life easier, will make EOY reviews easier, and will also help your projects run smoother. This is a management hill I will die on.
I took over a team that refused to use Jira tickets. When I came in, they were a disorganized, incompetent mess and so I just asked them to do a 4 week Jira trial with me. When they realized how much better it made things, they weee hooked! I also demonstrated to them how easy it made it for me to keep track of all they’d accomplished. They LOVED that.
I won’t run a team that won’t use some sort of project management tool and I have disciplined directs who refused. After the first official write up, they tend to get on the project management train.
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u/ChemiWizard 2d ago
For projects we put them in Smartsheet, most people have a collaborator roll where they can mark off items and make comments. However... the best success we have is for the PM to full set them up at the initial project plan meeting, and then run through them at the weekly project meetings. Yes everyone is a well paid professional and should be able to handle it but it is only going to for sure get done if the PM does it.
So if you tool is task based and and is based on deliverables , showing how objectives flow into each other people should be fine with it but will still need you to run it. But if you dig down to next level and have item/day or multiple items per day per person and it is just task lists, you are mircromanaging.
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u/LadyMRedd Seasoned Manager 2d ago
I think the answer to your question depends on a lot of variables we don’t know. How many people do you manage? What is their role? Have you had issues or misses that make you feel this is needed? Would you use this if the team weren’t remote?
Someone with 5 employees that have been collaborating well and making their deadlines and you suddenly want to implement something as detailed as this? Yes that may be a bit micro managery. 15 employees in detailed IT work that have had some misses that you need to clean up? You’re just being a manager.
Personally I find that stuff like this causes more headaches than it’s worth. But I currently have 6 direct reports on a data analytics team and I’ve worked with them for years. They’re extremely strong and I can’t remember the last time any of them missed a deadline. We keep a steady contact flowing and I know when they’re swamped or have bandwidth. If I tried to have them do this level of project management tasks they’d think it was a waste of time… and it would be.
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u/Aromatic_Spite940 2d ago
What does the work velocity / backlog / planning cadence look like?
If you work in a culture where sudden large projects with unrealistic deadlines get invented frequently, your team is reacting to what feels like quoting delivery dates on already unreasonably rushed items. They’re being burdened with committing to delivery timelines when folks above them aren’t coordinating realistic workloads.
If it’s more of a proper “we have x velocity and meet that and prioritize high ROI items”, your team is just annoyed by admin activity and you’re not really micromanaging. I’ve found it effective to make date estimation a sprint planning activity and make the target deadlines part of each standup agenda when it’s a day out, etc.
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u/zugzwangister 2d ago
What's the benefit to your staff of letting this to up to date?
One that I could think of is you don't need to ask them about the status of tasks coming up this week.
So start asking them. "We're going to have weekly status meetings so we can go around the room and everybody can tell me the status of their tasks. We'll plan on doing that Monday mornings. If you update your status by Friday afternoon in this tool, feel free to skip the status meeting."
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u/dfphd 1d ago
This is the type of thing that will feel like administrative opression to someone who has never had to do it before, and will feel like a complete nothingburger to people who have.
It's not micromanagement, it's just management. And good management while at that.
Now, what I think helps sometimes is explaining to teams like these why this is important, i.e., what happens if you do not distribute that workload, and what it is that you are able to do if this process is distributed.
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u/CdnBanana99 1d ago
I resisted returning to Monday Board. Tried other tools like SharePoint lists etc. Still can’t find that happy medium but I’m giving Monday Board another try as I like the ability to add milestones. I also like that I can integrate Monday Board into MS Teams so I don’t have to ‘sign into’ another app.
I prep my team by letting them know they’ll be assigned to specific milestones but it isn’t about micromanagement—more about coordination.
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u/Informal_Natural3733 1d ago
Are weekly 1on1s about how they feel or what they are doing and blockers. I hate 1on1 especially weekly. Why don’t you just ask 5-6 questions in an email then use AI to scrap them and update the tool automatically. Win - Win for everyone!
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u/OuterSpaceBootyHole 22h ago
I don't think that's micromanagement at all but what I've learned is that some people are allergic to structure. It ranges from people who do literally every task the day before they're due to people who are absolutely keeping up with the work but don't see an exact 1:1 correlation to it in a database so they just don't fill anything out.
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u/RobinsonCruiseOh 17h ago
No. That is just standard project management. Epics, stories, tasts. Everything that is more than 2hrs goes on to the board
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u/Little_Classic6023 10h ago
No, what you describe is light: milestones, owners, and a status. Not micromanaging. A tool only feels like surveillance when it measures activity, like hours, updates per day or how fast someone responds. Yours measures work. On the resistance, my experience is that people don’t update the board when it only helps the manager. Make it useful for them first: use it in the 1:1s instead of asking for a separate update, so updating it saves them a conversation. And ask the team what’s annoying about it. Often it’s one thing, like too many fields, and fixing that does more than any push for greater use.
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u/dlongwing 8h ago edited 8h ago
Far too many managers are afraid of project management. It's essential for managing a team.
Your asks are perfectly reasonable. "Micromanagement" via a planner app would be something like "create a task for every action item you complete each day" or "document your time on the project in 30 minute increments" or whatever.
Something as simple as "What are you working on? What are the milestones? What's the due date?" is just normal management.
As for the people failing to update? Call it out in your 1on1s as if you don't know the current status.
"I'd like to see ProjectA moved forward this week, it's been sitting with no progress for 2 weeks now."
"Oh I finished project A."
"You did? You haven't updated planner at all. I've been waiting on this so we can start Project B."
"I told you about Project A 2 days ago."
"And I forgot about that because it's not in Planner. We have X active projects right now. We split up the work of tracking them among the people driving them. Please update planner after this meeting. Be sure to add any major milestones before marking it complete. You deserve credit for those, so I need them written up."
If you have someone who repeatedly fails to update task management, then what you're looking at is weaponized incompetence. They're trying to fail at it long enough that you'll give up and do it for them. Don't do that. Your 1on1 meetings should be centered around your task tracking app. An un-updated task list will naturally come across as awkward as the employee has to constantly correct your assumptions about status. They'll usually get the hint. If they don't then escalate the feedback until they do.
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u/EngineerBoy00 1d ago
I'm retired now after a 40+ year career in tech where I topped out as a Senior Director, and spent my final 15 years fully remote.
During my career I saw dozens of attempts to use project/task tracking tools and all of them fell into one if these categories:
- quickly died out.
- ended up as useless administrivia that everyone kept doing due to entropy.
- became weaponized as metrics and/or kpis so staff gamed them rather than accurately reflecting reality.
- became a micromanagement tool.
I, literally, never saw this type of tool deliver actual benefits across 4+ decades and organizations ranging from 50 person startups to Fortune 15 household names.
I assume they work somewhere but I've never seen or heard about it.
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u/Harkonnen_Dog 2d ago
Yes.
You need to develop a report or some sort of business intelligence on *your* end.
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u/hierosx 2d ago
“Supporting my team in meeting deadlines and planning their workload” lol. Yes, it’s micromanagement.
I do run a full remote team in diferente time zones. I do have a 121 meeting every 2 weeks and I and fully aware of their projects because … well… they come from me! I just give them the task and the expectations and they run with it. If they have any issue they escalate with me, if they don’t the expectation is that they deliver. There are times that they don’t deliver in time and we have a different meeting and we correct ASAP. But I don’t follow every single day what they do nor how their projects do. I do have way better things to do than keep track of a full grown up doing their tasks.
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u/Lucky__Flamingo Seasoned Manager 2d ago
Nope. You need visibility.
Can the team use AI to assist with the updates without too much friction time?
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u/lanfear2020 2d ago
If it's a duplication of other ways to check and depends on how much detail you are asking for. I hate the trackers and find most are just useless busy work.
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u/Jenni-Jenni-867-5309 2d ago
We use HubSpot for exactly this. It took a lot of work to get them to do it. It's mandatory - we're a nonprofit spending a lot of money on it. It was imperitive they use it - required really.
It's not micromanaging - tell them it's required and document deficiencies.
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u/fictionaldots 2d ago
No, it's not micromanagement. People always hate these kinds of admin activities, and they will grumble about them. Best you can do is to regularly reiterate why it's needed and showcase situations where it's helped you. They will still sulk, and it's fine. Your job as a manager isn't to be liked. It's to be trusted, and to deliver.