Bad Advice for Team Management

Published in

SimbirSoft World

4 min readJul 21, 2023

In the world of bad tips, workflow hinders project success, and delegation of responsibilities leads to nothing good. And, by the way, only the team lead or project manager should know all the information about the project’s progress, and the rest of the team doesn’t need to know anything about it…

Let’s talk about what to do to make everything go haywire.

Don’t create a workflow

Let the developers figure out how to work on their own, and your task status will acquire an additional characteristic: “chaos.” Team members will spend extra time clarifying details that could have been used to complete project tasks.

Thanks to a workflow, the team works more efficiently since all specialists are on the same page and understand the current status of each feature’s implementation. It helps quickly identify at which stage the process is stuck and reduces time gaps between work blocks.

Do not conduct sprint planning with the team

Team members don’t need to understand the goals and deadlines of the next iteration. Let everyone implement tasks according to their own discretion. After all, you want the end result to surprise you.

By involving the team in sprint planning, you create a unified picture of project implementation, taking into account all the details. Perhaps someone on the team has already worked with the chosen technology and knows about the nuances and hidden complexities that they can share with everyone. This person can caution against making wrong decisions and provide suggestions on simplifying tasks. Having no plan will likely result in disproportionate workloads or incorrect prioritization, pushing the project towards missing deadlines.

Overburden the team

Burnout impossible to take a break. Insert a comma after the first word, and you’ll be accompanied by passivity and unproductivity throughout the project.

When specialists can complete their tasks within the designated timeframe without exceeding an 8-hour workday, they have enough free time for rest and recuperation. Such a balance allows them to approach matters not merely as executors but with a creative mindset. For instance, they can contribute ideas for task implementation.

Do not assign responsibilities and do not delegate

Why should a leader develop employees, cultivate their sense of responsibility, and create a safety net for themselves when everything can be piled onto their own shoulders? After the tenth burnout, their body will surely develop immunity (spoiler: no).

Concentrating duties on one person will lead to reduced engagement from all team members, and they won’t feel their significance. If a Team Lead is temporarily unable to perform their duties due to illness or business trips, no one will replace them. As a result, the risk of project suspension will rise.

Delegation allows expanding the team’s competence and creating accountability for each participant’s results, while enabling the leader to maintain productivity and work-life balance.

Concentrate the entire knowledge base in the minds of one or two developers

The broader the specialists’ outlook, the greater the likelihood of receiving valuable advice from them to improve work. A true leader doesn’t need any suggestions.

When there are only a few knowledge holders on the project, the bus factor becomes significant. This term refers to the number of team members whose prolonged absence would put the work in a crisis situation.

You need to think in advance about how to ensure knowledge circulation within the team, appoint responsible individuals, and distribute complex tasks among different developers. Discussing challenging aspects of the project is best done together with all participants. This way, the “supermen” of the team can document information about their implemented solutions in an easy-to-understand format and provide the best course of action in different conditions.

Don’t give feedback

Team members should understand you on an intuitive level. And if that doesn’t happen, it’s the employee’s fault — replace them until you find the right one.

After all, you’re not working with robots! Feedback is important for every team member. It can raise motivation levels and highlight areas for growth. It’s always pleasant to hear from more experienced colleagues about your accomplishments and discuss how to handle tasks even better.

Don’t do retrospectives

Why waste more time? You’ve already had plenty of meetings and communications on the project.

Rumors have it that retrospectives help the team develop! During discussions, participants collectively identify areas for growth, ways of improvement, and distribute tasks for implementing specific enhancements, fostering team responsibility. It can even lead to Kaizen!

We hope our bits of bad advice, or rather doing things the opposite way, have been helpful! For more information on project management, read our latest article: The Role of the Team Leader in Managing the IT Team.

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