Honestly, your best tools will always be communication first and foremost, then accountability, accountability, accountability! As a PM you can only do so much. To a certain level, a team member has to manage themselves. There will always be other things going on like their personal life and other projects, but if they are also on their project, then they already know that a certain level of work is expected from them.

As a PM the best that you can do is communicate well with them and consistently. When things don't turn  out well/start taking a downward turn its important to involve higher up management if necessary just so that they're aware. Its important to delegate the task once it starts to creep out of your hands as it would for someone not meeting the level of work thats needed from them for your project. 

I agree that communication is the primary tool that you should use to handle these types of issues. To keep people on schedule you may have to have regular check ins on project progress so that you can first identify when people are falling behind. From there you can have conversations with the people in question to see if the work can be rebalanced or more resources given to help get them back on track. Another tool that is important is the build extra time into the project schedule to be handle unexpected surprises. Having extra time gives the flexibility needed to handle accommodate your team, especially in personal emergencies. 

I second what yg385 said. Team members should be aware of the time and energy requirements of a project and plan accordingly. In the case of major life events that would shift their ability to complete tasks or put in the same amount of effort, they should let their PM know. As a PM, in order to foster this sort of communication and trust with your team, you need to set a good example. I also think it's important to respect work life balances. No one likes a boss who expects their entire life to revolve around work or routinely needs stuff done at 11 pm on a sunday night. As long as the PM is reasonable in their expectations, it makes sense for the team members to mirror that. If there is going to be a crunch period coming up, the PM should notify the team that the expectation for work done in that time is going to increase. If someone is not meeting expectations, doesn't have a valid reason, and hasn't responded well to efforts to chat with them (which should be the first approach to fixing the problem), it may be worth replacing them.

I agree with the points regarding communication that have been mentioned so far. Something else I would like to add is that the PM has to make sure the technical work is being completed, along with maintaining a structure for the team that will allow the team to get work done efficiently. To make sure the team will flow together and work properly, the PM has to set clear expectations and rhythms for the project at the start. The PM has to make sure that project information is distributed consistently so that confusion is reduced and employees can’t say the expectations were unclear. Having a meeting time that adheres to what the team wants will allow this to happen, as the project information can be distributed during these meetings. 

Another thing that can help is linking every task to a measurable output, feeding directly into the next stage of development. Each design input must eventually connect to a verified design output in medical device development, and if each team member can see this connection, they will feel more responsibility for the work they are doing, leading to better outputs. Understanding that their deliverables will be tested and evaluated later on in the process will also encourage them to produce higher-quality work. Shifting the focus to the standard for the project will lead to better outcomes from the team, as the game becomes about quality instead of the number of hours worked. 

Designing overlapping checkpoints instead of one large deadline would also help the PM manage the team’s work. Progress can be seen earlier with the smaller checkpoints, which can also catch mistakes more quickly and prevent lost progress. Failed experiments, delays from vendors, or changing regulations are all issues that medical device development faces. The team can adapt to these changes very quickly when intermediate checkpoints are incorporated into the project schedule. 

In the project team for BME684 that I took with Dr. Simon, the PM that led our team held an initial meeting to see what availability the team had and what days we wanted to meet for regular check-ins, something that a good PM would do, as I mentioned earlier. This allowed the team to be satisfied with the meeting time, which ended up being every Friday, since all their voices were heard. Then, the PM made small checkpoints in which each team member had to text her their progress and if they were feeling overwhelmed with the work. The PM would check in regularly and ensure everyone was doing their part. This led to the project going extremely smoothly and successfully. Each team member was also told of how their deliverable was going to be used and tested by everyone later. Every team member was required to review others’ work, and this led to the feeling of responsibility in the team to increase, ultimately leading to higher-quality outputs. 

If a team member is producing weak work, the PM should analyze the problem at its root cause instead of just seeing that a deliverable is not being completed. If the requirement is poorly defined or the timeline is unrealistic, then the team member could produce sub-par work. Additionally, some team members’ skills may not fully align with the task that the PM assigns. Fixing structural issues first is a sign of a good PM. However, if these are not the issues and the member is continuously producing unsatisfactory deliverables, then the PM has to intervene, have a talk with the team member, and reassign tasks so the progress does not stall. 

I want to know about different industries and how they require different levels of structure from a PM. Medical device development needs strict verification and validation. Do you think that level of documentation and testing makes teams naturally more responsible in their work, leading to better outputs? How much responsibility should fall on the PM to change the workflow if the team is struggling? Do you think AI can be incorporated to check on progress automatically, with every completed action of the employee, so the PM can read AI summaries every day to ensure that work is being done well?

Everyone has made very valid points regarding this topic. I am a very firm believer in proper communication to achieve goals and address any issues in the lifespan of a project. If a team member was producing lackluster work, I would not address it so bluntly, but I would constructively speak to the team member and see if we can address the cause of the issue. I would want to identify if the team member is burnt out or if the project requirements are outside their skillset. I would then implement a form of course correction where the team member undergoes a peer review. In this way their progress has to be reported to their team members in order to ensure that progress is being made. The risk of letting the team down is sometimes enough to improve individual performance. To manage efficiency while respecting my workers humanity, I would try to accommodate them in ways that could improve their performance. For example, if it works better for one of my team members to work on a verification report later in the night, it could be possible to allow them to complete the report asynchronously to fit their needs. If possible, building buffers into a project or slack time can be beneficial if unexpected circumstances arise where a team member needs to take personal time off can or need more time for a deliverable. In this way you can accommodate their needs while still ensuring that the project is completed in a timely manner. 

Dev, I think you made a really good point about connecting each team member's task to a measurable output and to the next stage of development. When people understand how their work fits into the bigger picture, especially in something like medical device development where design inputs eventually lead to verification and validation, it probably increases their sense of responsibility and ownership. If someone knows their deliverable will directly affect testing or regulatory documentation later, they are more likely to focus on producing better quality work, rather than speeding through to finish a task as quickly as possible. Your idea of smaller checkpoints being used instead of one large deadline that projects often use is also one that I think would be extremely effective. Not only can a PM identify problems early and mitigate their effects using this approach, but in the case of complex projects, such as a medical device, breaking down deadlines into smaller checkpoints can allow for the project to appear more manageable to team members, preventing them from being overwhelmed by the scope that some larger projects can impose. Personally, when a project of any kind is broken down into smaller, more manageable sections I feel like I not only feel more motivated to work on it, but it seems like the project is actually smaller in its scope than it actually is. 

As for the questions about documentation and testing in medical device development, I do think the strict verification and validation process encourages teams to be more careful and accountable. Knowing that work can and will be reviewed and audited by regulatory bodies such as the FDA, it pushes team members to maintain higher standards with their work to prevent the risk of issues arising from their work. The PM however, should still play an important role in adjusting workflows when certain teams or team members have issues, since a well-documented process can still fail if communication or resource allocation is poor. 

I think that a project manager can be accommodating to their team members while also successfully managing a project through good communication and setting clear expectations. If team members understand project goals, the project timeline, and their responsibilities from the start of a project, it’s easier for each team member to manage their time with other non-project commitments. When a team member is failing to meet expectations, the first thing a project manager should do is set up a private meeting with them. There could be external circumstances affecting the team members’ performance such as workload from other projects or personal issues. When a PM addresses the problem and offers support, the team members’ performance could improve. For example, if someone is consistently missing deadlines, to help keep them on track a project manager could check in more often or break tasks into smaller parts. If their performance still does not improve after providing that support, the PM may need to reassign those responsibilities to someone else to ensure the project remains on schedule.

In the situations where its is required for a PM to do personnel management with the other members if the team, it should go without saying that the most important thing to do is communicate. This goes for both parties, if someone is lagging behind and is unable to do the tasks in the allotted time it's up to that member of the team to come out in the open and explain their troubles. It is up to the PM to not just react to these group changes but to also act on them before it causes more issues. An effective PM should have a read on the situations of the members in the group by creating an open forum of discussion for all of the group. Though if a member of the group is especially falling behind then a more direct approach is required so the entire team doesn't completely fall behind. If it requires reallocating group work to fix the schedule or asking more an extension, the core of the team should not falter because of lack of communication.