> This is all under the generous assumption that your deadlines are actually very important in the business and plans will have to be shifted if they're not met because of a harsh business reality. Otherwise it's your fault for allowing the cost of deadlines to be incurred in a team where all they will do is hinder morale, add bureaucracy and reduce productivity.
As far as most dev teams are concerned, timelines are less important for the business than they are to each other.
People don't like it when they are constantly waiting on person X to finish their part of the work. (That's a good way to know you've really dropped the ball as manager: the other team members start asking YOU what's going on with the other person.)
PIPs are a waste of time imo. Usually if you're at the PIP stage, you're going to end up firing them anyway. I've only heard a handful of cases where PIPs actually *worked*. The rest of the time they were a waste of everyone's time.
If there's a persistent lack of communication when it should've been known that a deadline is not going to be met or is at least going to be close, set-up a PIP where you lay down a checklist to follow at the start/end of the day of behaviors you expect regarding communication.
If that doesn't help, then yes, firing is the correct response, not permanent micromanagement.
This is all under the generous assumption that your deadlines are actually very important in the business and plans will have to be shifted if they're not met because of a harsh business reality. Otherwise it's your fault for allowing the cost of deadlines to be incurred in a team where all they will do is hinder morale, add bureaucracy and reduce productivity.