Let’s get into the nuts and bolts of managing people in an FP&A team. We aren’t all AI agents yet… (despite lots of companies trying).

Here are the vastly oversimplified types of FP&A team members I’ve seen both crush it and flop spectacularly in their roles (similar to budgeting with department heads):

• The perfectionist hedgehog: Hides away for extended periods until a deliverable is ‘perfect’—by which time it’s too late to correct.

• The data-can’t-be-summarized analyst: When asked for a summary, provides a fifteen-minute overview with more caveats than answers.

• The new structure enthusiast: Fights for a groundbreaking OKR/Big Picture/Cascading Goals taxonomy weekly… and tries to fix execution with another structure every quarter.

• The back-in-my-day manager: Every new tool or process is worse than “how it used to be”.

• The doom prophet: Denies any strategy will work. “Just look at the numbers and pipeline!”

• The everything-is-a-fire-drill manager: Escalates a minor over-budget variance into a full-blown organizational control crisis.

• The perfectionist: Treats a three-cent variance as proof no system is reliable.

• The reluctant accountant: Quotes GAAP net income during runway discussions.

And… let’s be honest. We’ve probably all been a bit of each of these at one point.

So, what’s the real difference between those who are effective and those who aren’t? It starts with how you, as a manager, define the work. You want to make sure you’re setting clear projects and boundaries: outcomes people can own. Then, let your culture take you the rest of the way. This approach is far more effective than simply assigning someone to “Revenue Analysis,” which often turns into repetitive tasks and, worse, creates an incentive to take longer just to stay busy. When people are given clear goals within a strong cultural framework, they naturally move faster, automate more, and focus on impact, not just activity.

We will walk through how to do this in each phase of the employee journey:

Doing this right can turn the negative of any of the ‘FP&A types’ into a strong asset.

Let's get to work:

1. Hire people who can take projects to completion

Make sure you hire people who naturally fit into a project-driven environment. That means emphasizing project success and self-leadership throughout the hiring process. To do so:

• Use your network. Ask colleagues for people who have completed impressive projects on any level. 

• Consider interns. Internships are a low-risk way to test how someone handles real projects. If they thrive, you already know they fit your style.

• Focus interviews on project walkthroughs. Ask candidates to walk you through past projects they owned. Look for signs of being able to build within the boundaries that were laid out.

• Do a case study. Give candidates a mini project or problem to solve. Pay close attention to how they structure their approach, and how the final answer fits within the boundaries.

Hiring is always tough, but focusing on project-completion gives you the clearest lens: you’re bringing in someone who can do the work and succeed in your team environment.

Tip: Flexing your personal network for hires rather than waiting on HR becomes a great personal asset that will last a lifetime.

2. Onboard through projects

The best time to establish your expectations is during onboarding. One of the most effective ways I’ve found to do this is through “Know-and-Deliver” documents. We touched on this at a personal level in the 90-day CFO start, but it’s also a powerful tool for setting the tone for creativity within clear boundaries. To do so:

• Create a spreadsheet with two types of items. These are the tasks that the new team member should do in the first thirty days, broken up into:

  • Things to Know: Key information they should actively seek out. Example: Where can you find the most recent budget?

  • Things to Deliver: Tasks they should complete and submit in a timely manner. Example: Deliver an updated cash flow forecast.

• Meet weekly until all tasks are completed. Use these check-ins to review progress and assess how proactive they are in self-discovery and execution.

• Hold a checkpoint at the end. Treat this as the first mini performance review. Evaluate how the person handled the tasks, where they excelled, and where improvement is needed.

By structuring onboarding as a “mini list of projects,” you get new team members bought into your project-driven style from day one — and empower them to control how they get the work done.

Example for an FP&A Analyst:

3. Guide with individual project roadmaps

Role descriptions are great. But today’s world moves faster than ever. In FP&A, a person’s role should primarily be defined by projects, not a static list of responsibilities. Build automations. Solve problems quickly. Direct key decisions. The best way to drive this is by moving everyone onto a project basis (note: we covered team design earlier) and then actively guiding the projects. Here’s how to do it:

• Define the projects for your team. Start with the gap analysis you conducted earlier. You should have a clear list of projects, ranked by priority, that will improve decision-making across the company.

• Assign a suite of projects to each team member. Each critical project needs one clear owner. Give every employee a realistic, but “stretch” set of projects to manage. Ownership builds accountability and engagement.

• Lay out the desired outcomes and success criteria. Not the “how.” Resist the urge to dictate every step. That’s the employee’s job, and where their creativity and unique strengths emerge. Focus instead on defining what success looks like.

  • Example: By the end of next month, you will design a new customer health score that replaces all other ‘product scores’ across dashboards and correlates 80%+ to churn and retention.

• Check in regularly during project execution. As employees progress, schedule check-ins for them to present hypotheses and early drafts. This keeps projects aligned without micromanaging.

• Conduct a post-mortem at the end. Was the project successful based on the agreed metrics? Why or why not? What can be learned for next time?

At the end of the day, all of your team should be working on projects that improve the business. By monitoring the progress of your projects, you will ensure your team is driving the business forward without needing to micro-manage.

Tip: Defining the project correctly is 90% of success. Spend most of your time here. The rest is about execution and follow-through.

4. Guide with performance reviews

Hold them. Performance reviews are your best opportunity to step back, look over the work completed, and assess how it contributed to the business. Done right, they align team members to the results you actually want to see. We dive into this in-depth later, but briefly:

• Hold reviews regularly. I know they’ve fallen out of fashion at “fast-moving companies,” but here’s the dirty secret: performance reviews work. They give employees clear direction, highlight where they’re doing well, and offer a structured chance to improve.

• Judge performance against the original list of projects. Review the list of assigned projects. Was each project completed on time? Did it meet or exceed the expected outcomes? Tie the evaluation directly back to the work you agreed on.

• Grade the team member according to your company’s culture. Evaluate individual performance against your team’s cultural principles.

• Give a detailed example of how to improve. Abstract advice doesn’t help anyone. Be specific.

  • Example: “Your health score model was strong technically, but usage was poor. That was primarily because the CS team was never trained on how to use it or how it fit into their workflows. This was a critical miss that has caused the project to be severely behind schedule.”

• Align with comp structures. We discussed bonuses as an organization-wide setting here, The key is to reward great outcomes.

Clear, consistent reviews turn good work into great outcomes. When your team knows where they stand and how to improve, you’re not just managing, you’re building a culture of accountability and growth.

Tip: Focus on what you can measure. Did they complete the project on time? Did it drive the intended decision? Avoid subjective feedback that’s harder to action or quantify.

5. Manage performance

With solid performance reviews and clear project outcomes, key personnel decisions become much easier and, frankly, should almost take care of themselves. Nothing about AI has changed this. Overall guidance:

• Promoting. Consistently nailing stretch projects is the clearest sign someone’s ready to move up. High execution on big, complex work earns the next step forward.

• Retaining. Steady, reliable delivery on standard projects is valuable, even if a team member isn’t pushing into stretch territory yet.

• Developing. Some team members need more time. Identify potential and assign targeted projects to help them build missing skills.

• Repositioning. Struggles may stem from poor fit, not poor ability. Before firing, ask if a different role or project type could unlock better performance.

• Firing. Clear project results simplify tough decisions. If expectations are repeatedly missed despite support, it’s time to act.

Projects make things easy and enormously less subjective. Define the project, then evaluate the performance. If you do this well, it will make agreement on performance much easier to reach.

Tip: Remember, promoting doesn’t have to mean adding management layers. To keep a flat structure, think in terms of technical promotions by increasing levels of responsibility, skill depth, and business impact without needing to put someone in charge of a team.

In conclusion.

Manage individuals by giving projects as boundaries and letting them go the rest of the way. This allows the team to perform, build, and make decisions much easier for you.

Your role becomes less about constant oversight and more about defining the right projects, setting clear expectations, and helping people course-correct when needed. In a project-driven environment, your team learns faster, builds results that last, and can respond in a fast-changing finance-agent-driven world.