When you feel like you want to micromanage, ask the team how they’re measuring their success and ask them to make that visible to you on an ongoing basis. Then sit on your hands if you must, but wait a week or two to see what they give you. If they have nothing to share, it’s a sign that you may need to do a course correction, which probably means digging into more details.
How do you decide when to ask for this information to begin with? My philosophy is simple: if the team is making progress on its goals, the systems are stable, and the product manager is happy, I rarely dig into the details beyond a cursory overview. However, that requires goals with a plan for people to be making progress against, and a product manager who can give you another perspective. When you are managing a team that doesn’t have a clear plan, use the details you’d want to monitor to help them create one. What are you holding them accountable against this month, this quarter, or this year? If you can’t answer that question, the first step is to help the team create those goals.