How can you develop great operational control skills?

To start with, if you have to control operations, you have to be an expert at all aspects of it.
No member of the team should be in a position to take you for a ride.
At the same time you also have to be aware of all the areas where improvement is possible, so that suggestions are well received and acted upon if there is merit in them.
Good control comes with sensible delegation and proper design of workflow.
Well designed control mechanisms ensure that every team-member's work gets counter-checked at some point by someone else without hampering the efficiency of the process.
Last but not the least, the system of reporting should reliably capture the results at all critical checks points and should focus on 'exceptions reporting'.