As explained in the lecture videos of this week there are 3 types of organizational structures. First, the Functional Organization which has a dedicated team with members having shared skills and knowledge and this helps individuals for increased specialization. However, any changes made by any of the other departments would affect the work of the other team if the changes are informed with a delay hence making it tough for coordinating between the teams. Second, the Project-Based Organization projects are done by a team which is structured to have a functional head with team members from the different departments which allows the entire team to focus on the goal of the project, apart from this such an organization helps improve project management skills and technical leadership skills. But there is limited sharing of knowledge and is feasible only for big projects as it is an expensive commitment for having a team that is dedicated to a project. Thirdly, we have the Matrix Organization which is a hybrid organization with mostly a project head and the functional head and makes efficient use of resources. A good amount of knowledge is shared within the team members and projects are completed faster and easily. The only disadvantage of having conflicting schedules can be overcome by negotiating between the two heads for the better running of the project and the organization by managing the environment within the workplace.
I personally would prefer the matrix organization because its a team made with individuals from different departments which allows quick problem solving and is efficient. Allows many ideas to flow in and work on the best of them with a good coordination and a good management of resources.
Functional organizations initially sound like the better organization because hierarchy is clear cut and you can foresee where you have the opportunity for growth within the company. This could provide reassurance for employees. However, the lack of interdepartmental coordination and full control of decision making on a topic being assigned to one person sounds like a recipe for disaster. I don't have much industry experience but during my short time in industry I was able to get acquainted with the different projects going on because of how facilitated the communication between departments is. It was easy to pick up the phone and call R&D to ask about a project or ask QA for guidance. Decisions are made after consulting the specialties within the different departments. Matrix organizations seem to have the proper balance in my opinion. Information flows which is the key to success, and there are no cliques. The downside is the difficulty in scheduling and possible conflicting ideas between the two bosses. It is my opinion that communication has to be of highest priority to avoid conflict and delays in this type of organization.
I would personally pick matrix organization. This is because it incorporates more of the team aspect. Teams get a bigger say in the project and the outcome than managers and functional heads. The problem with matrix organization is that it is that its success is solely based on if it's a strong or week matrix. This means that the teams, the managers and the functional heads have to be united as one. There has to be strong communication and understanding between them. The pros of a matrix organization is that there's good management of resources, there are no department or project silos, and there's knowledge transfer between departments. This level of cohesiveness paves the way to success. This is why I believe that matrix organization could potentially be the most successful and productive approach.
I did an internship at a project based organization. I enjoyed my time there, and working with the team was a breeze. Project ideas are very easily announced, and discussed about in the workplace. It was a fairly small team so conveying information to one another was extremely simple. As much as I enjoyed it, I think a matrix organization would be much better to work for. Matrix organizations seem to be much better managed and organized. I believe that the pros of a matrix outweigh its cons; which is why I prefer a matrix organization over a project based, or functional organization.
The matrix structure allows an efficient use of company’s resources. There could be some negative impact on project due to conflict between project manager and functional manager. The most difficult challenge in matrix form is team development. Every member in team must be informed about their role in project and they must be informed about the authority. Untrained team member can cause unsuccess of a project so project manager should make sure that every team member is properly trained. In a project based structure project manager select team , allocate task , and see performance. Duplication of resources is biggest challenge in project based organization. It combines expert with skills to achieve common goal. Project manager has to deal with a large number of project at a same time so challenge is to choose the right kind of people for a particular project. The lack of learning power can be another hurdle for project manager.
Among the three common organizational structures, I prefer the functional structure. I believe it is a logical way of distributing the tasks throughout the company. I think it makes sense to group employees together based on their skills and knowledge area because this grouping of similarly skilled employees maximizes the quality and success of their work. Their productivity is increased because the employees within the same department can support and learn from each other since they are familiar with the same duties and tasks.
This week we learned that there were three types of organizations. I am stuck between project based and functional organizations. They both have their fair share of pros and cons. One major difference is that for functional organizations the projects are done within a department while for project-based organizations projects are done by project teams. In a functional organization decisions are made by one person and not discussed among others while in a project based organization it is discussed among the team. I think a project-based team would be the type of organization I would like to work in. I like having a team where the decisions can be made together. This allows for more creativity and collaboration which can lead to an overall better product.
While the pros and cons of each organizational structures are covered pretty well in the lecture, I will go over it for the sake of the discussion. The first type of organizational structure was the functional organization. The pros were that it was easy to coordinate events within a department, decisions are made by one person and advancement and position are clear-cut. The cons were that this organizational structure forms silos or groups of information and culture, coordination between departments is tough and that all decisions are made by one person. The second type was project-based organization. The pros were that no silos are formed, projects run well after team adjustments, and knowledge transfers well between projects. The cons were project teams can form detrimental cultures, limited knowledge is shared between teams and duplicate resources exist. The final type is matrix organization. The pros are good management of resources, no silos, and knowledge transfers well between projects as well as departments. The cons were that everyone has at least two bosses, project and department schedules can conflict and functional and project heads must negotiate for resources. Personally, I believe that the matrix organization works best and its the organization structure that I would prefer.
Each type of organization has their pros and cons, and largely depends on the company and its goals. For a company that provides products/solutions for specific clientele, a project-based or matrix organization would suit the company more than a functional organization. When you have an individual from each department on a project team, you have all the resources available to complete the project. Through said organization, project teams can form detrimental cultures. However, for a company that is product-based, a functional organization would work better to ensure a more specialized and detailed end-product. I have worked in a functional organization and believe that it works well for my type of company as we are product based company. However, when it comes to developing a new product, teams are created with representatives from every department allowing for a comprehensive approach regarding product development.
There are a number ways you can structure your company management. Organizations must adapt to a suitable structure to achieve their business goals, whether that be a Functional, Projectized, Matrix, or other type of structure.
A functional organizational structure is the most common of the three organizational structures adopted by most companies. Companies organized by function group employees according to their activities in the organization.
Projectized organizations are dynamic and they adapt quickly. In this organizational structure project managers have a central role. They control everything. However, as organizations grow and become bigger, they need to adapt and they take on characteristics of a strong matrix organization.
That been said, I think Matrix is the organizational structure I did prefer depending on how large the project am working on. It is more dynamic than functional Management that it allows project team members to share informations more readily across task boundaries, and it also allows increase in knowledge. The matrix organizational structure brings the employees and managers together to work on a specific goal which makes it atypical. A Matrix Organization Structure introduces, or at least recognizes, the real life complexity of actual business environment. This includes geography, or the location of the project execution, refers to the responsibilities and account abilities of the project team members; the used technology that makes the business unit more effective and efficient.
In sum, the best organizational structure is one that fits your management style, company size and overall marketing strategy.
To further strengthen the argument for a matrix based organization, I have personal experience in the matrix based organization style. We even have a training based upon this to have everyone understand their role in the matrix and where culture alignment is required. I believe this functions well as the teams understand from the beginning on the number of resources required per project where one may be working 5 different projects and others solely on one. This is way to optimize your organization's human capital and can be an asset when moving a project swiftly. The downside to this style is when the organization loses employees due to a furlough or layoff (COVID definitely aided in this hardship) as the matrix depends on proper resourcing and talent. If you lose talent and the amount of resourcing per team, some teams that work on multiple projects have larger constraints on time to work on each project and can be the bottle neck in the team. Managing these resources during a re-organization of a department also hinder some of the progress made per group as shifting personnel can cause delays in each function when training a new member. Overall, the matrix style of an organization works well when managers, although less powerful than in the other two styles, are able to monitor and develop their talent to work cross functionally and lead their respective department in the cross functional team.
Of the three types of organizations - functional, project-based, and matrix - matrix seems to be the most effective to me based on its project team structure. Although the project and department schedules may conflict and negotiations must be made for resources in a matrix organization, these are not huge concerns for a project as both can be easily solved with effective communication between the functional heads and project leaders. The main positives that come from a matrix organization are that all available resources are well managed and knowledge gained from one project is typically applicable for other projects, as well as throughout different departments.
The main issue with functional organization, and the reason that I did not choose this type of organization, is that there is not much collaboration between departments as all decisions are made by one person only. Obviously, this makes knowing the roles of each department easy to follow with no chance for overlap, but it must be hard for these types of organizations to get all of their departments on the same page for a particular project. Moreover, I did not choose project-based organization for reasons along the same lines. Although project teams within this organization tend to be efficient with their given tasks and knowledge can be used from project to project, there is limited communication between these project teams, which can result in certain miscommunications, such as duplicate resources.
This week's lecture describes that there are 3 different organizational structures: functional, projectized, and matrix organizations. Each organizational structure greatly impacts the way the company manages projects and how employees work. What do you think are some pros and cons for each organizational structure and which structure do you prefer?
I personally favor functional organizations because I like the idea of having different teams with a specific functionality (i.e. marketing, manufacturing, R&D) working on their respective parts of the project to get the job done. Therefore, the project is less overwhelming since it is broken down into several parts for each department to handle.
The pros for a Functional Organization are the ease of coordinate events within a department, which helps in achieving a goal in the project with perfection; also because the Functional Organization is divided into departments, responsibilities can be clearer. On the other hand, the idea of one person making the decision is more of a con than a pro. In some critical situations an instantaneous decision is required; however, a discussion between departments, helps in taking a proper decision and makes us see different points of view.
For the Project-based organization, the con that stands out to me is creating project silos. Even tho the team that is working on the project is focused on one project and knows the project well to come up with creative solutions and meet the milestones. It is preventing the teams from interacting and sharing knowledge that might help meeting a milestone on a different project.
Finally is the matrix, which is the one I prefer. One of the cons that were mentioned in class is that one person could have more than one boss, yet, if they know how to lead and direct the project and communicate with each other and the team, it could be more of a pro than a con. On the other hand, it is beneficial for the organization in terms of managing resources and knowledge.
Of the three organizational structures which we went over, I would favor the project-based structure because of the way communication and management are done. If I was working on a project, I would like to know every person working on the project and every aspect of the project so that I can do the best job possible. Also, I would prefer to work under the one boss of a project-based structure instead of the two bosses of a matrix structure because I wouldn’t be in a position where I had to satisfy to competing interests.
The functional organization was the first form of organizational structure. The advantages were that it was simple to arrange activities within a department, that decisions were taken by a single individual, and that promotion and rank were straightforward. The disadvantages is that this hierarchical system creates knowledge and cultural silos, that collaboration between divisions is difficult, and that all decisions are taken by one individual. Project-based organizations became the second category. The benefits were that no silos were created, that projects ran seamlessly after team changes, and that information was quickly shared between projects. The disadvantages were that project teams might develop negative environments, that information is exchanged infrequently amongst teams, and that redundant resources occur. Matrix organization is the last form. The benefits include effective resource control, the absence of silos, and knowledge sharing between programs and agencies. The disadvantages were that everybody had at least two supervisors, project and department plans could clash, and functional and project heads would have to compete for money. Personally, I agree that the matrix organization system is the most efficient, and it is the one that I would choose.
