Hm, your news on trying to get more organized and your work on improving project management immediately struck my interest. In case you (or no one in your team) haven't read it yet, I think I would suggest David Allen's 'Getting Things Done'. The book focuses on the question, how one - by proper self management - can improve the productivity of oneself and one's surrounding. I think it gives very helpful hints on how to deal with the daily grind better, so there is more resources left to effectively steering your project where you want it to be.Maybe more than usual, we are curious about what you think. If you have any comments or tips regarding the areas mentioned above please let us know on our forums.
On a higher level, though in my opinion less focused on immediate applicability, the work of Peter Drucker (Management) or Fredmund Malik (one of his pupils) may be valuable, too. They write about how to organize your organization/company/... in order to be most effective and productive at fulfilling its set goals. This includes talking about common pitfalls in communication and problems with time-wasting meetings. Or what kind of functions and goals your 'management' should have and what not.
In the end, however, the productivity always comes down to how productive and effective the team members are - aka how well they manage themselves. If they notice a problem, do they communicate it in time? Or only when it's about to blow up? Do they constantly 'drop the ball' and forget things that were agreed upon (which then blow up eventually)? Do people get stuck and (basically) start procrastinating because the tasks feel too overwhelming? Because they don't know what to do next, because it's not concrete enough? Because they don't know where the ship is even sailing? Or because they think it's someone elses responsibility?
Thus I personally would recommend Allen's book first - it deals well with common problems such as drowing in workload and losing control - and shows solutions to them. It frees up the necessary time to then deal with the 'higher level' aspects of visions. In the end, the basic skills ('What you have to do to be productive') are the same as needed to lead others/the team to more productivity (-> Drucker, Malik,..).
The idea of splitting direction giving and 'managing every day things' made me cringe. Giving direction and setting goals is part of good managing. If you split up 'having the idea' and 'overlooking the implementation of the idea', I think you'll end up with a communication nightmare. If you want to implement an idea, you have to control whether it's actually being implemented as intended - which is 'managing'. While you can delegate plenty of footwork concerning implementation, this doesn't remove the need to manage the whole thing. Management is about how to handle your (own) workforce and energy most effectively - and thus includes all the fun creative parts of having good ideas, that then need to be implemented and managed properly to become real.
Overall it sounds like you're on a good path^^
