For 4-5 years before starting my PhD, I worked at General Dynamics Electric Boat. The company designs and builds submarines. I have worked in the field on submarines overseeing work done by the navy as well as on the design side managing projects in the office setting. I took several project management classes at my company through Stevens Institute of Technology (specifically Dinesh Verma) and at the University of Connecticut. In this post, I want to discuss how I feel the projects I worked on were managed, specially the tools that were used to make it go well.

In the lecture, interpersonal skills were emphasized and awareness, empathy, regulation, motivation and social skills were called out. I completely agree that interpersonal skills were key to managing a project and outputting a quality product! To me, this translates to one thing that is a cancer in most industries and that is micromanagement. For a project to output a quality product, I believe the project manager needs interpersonal skills and specially MUST NEVER micromanage or be micromanaged. This needs to be emphasize in project management courses.

On that note, I wanted to share my favorite excerpt from a project management book: “Micromanagers are rarely likeable enough for anyone to try to help them. Our considered advice to PMs who are micromanaged is to request a transfer.” Harsh, may or may not be true….but probably true.

Does anyone else have any suggestions about key things to do or not do when managing a project or want to expand on their experiences with micromanage and the importance of interpersonal skills?

reference: Meredith, JR and SJ, Mantel. Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 7th Ed. New York. Wiley 2009. Print