Organisations and Projects: Temporary Structures

What are the three basic types of organisation structure within which you might be delivering a project?

Functional, matrix, project

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How is a functional organisation structured?

Functional managers control everything and head up single discipline departments, all functional staff report to them. Work is routine other than incremental improvement. Projects may be viewed as a distraction

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How is a project organisation structured?

The PM has complete authority and control and staff are assigned full-time to a specific project. Routine operations do not really exist. Projects form the majority of work (common for consultancies)

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How is a matrix organisation structured?

PM's have authority for the projects and functional managers have authority for the welfare of staff and efficiency of the department. There is a balance of authority. Structure works for organisations that undertake projects and routine operations. Proje

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Strengths of a functional organisation

Expertise is easily share across the department, clearly defined reporting structure (directly to functional manager), good for where the focus is on running the organisation

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Weaknesses of a functional organisation

Projects seen as a distraction, no single point of contact for projects creating inconsistent communication, staff may focus on their own area when making decisions to make their task easier

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Strengths of a project organisation

Strong commitment to projects without distraction of operational duties, PM is a single point of contact, different functional disciplines are likely to integrate better through closer working relationships

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Weaknesses of a project organisation

Staff may feel insure towards the end of project, inefficient resource utilisation when staff do no have enough work to be 100% utilised on the project, sharing or experience across different projects is difficult and individual staff take this knowledge

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Strengths of a matrix organisation

Good balance between project and operational work and better integration of outputs that need to be transitioned to operational use. Flexible and efficient use of resources as staff can switch between the two. Equal focus on task completion and staff deve

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Weaknesses of a matrix organisation

Conflict between matrix and operational work, and between project and functional managers. PM's need greater influencing skills as their authority may be limited. More difficult to track resource availability, time spent working on the project etc.

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Get Revising

Organisations and Projects: Temporary Structures

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