In medical device management, I believe the matrix organizational structure is most common. The matrix organizational structure allows all departments to collaborate with each other and provides good management of resources. For organizations with large projects, this organizational structure incorporates all functions and departments and could be found to be most beneficial.

While I agree with what the previous person stated that the matrix organizational structure is very common and allows the most interactions between the departments, I feel like a project-based organization can also be very common when dealing with medical device management. Many smaller companies start off by focusing on some specific type of devices and then branch out to more and more different types after. When the focus is usually pretty small and there are not a very large amount of people in the company, having a project-based organization type will not be too detrimental to the overall efficiency of the company. With this type of organization, the projects will be running well with each team, and having a smaller scope will mean that not too much information is lost between team and team since most of them will be working with similar concepts. Once the company grows and branches out to different types of devices, this kind of organization might not do as well and then a matrix structure would become the most useful. Overall, it is still important that the project managers, no matter what organizational structure is being used, is always communicating to their team well and making sure that the project goals are being reached in a timely manner.

I don't have too much experience working or knowledge in medical device companies to say which organization approach is most common. However, from my experiences I have noticed Matrix-based organizations to appear more frequently in major medical device companies. I currently work in a Matrix based organization and a majority of companies I have interviewed at follow this same structure. I think this is because, as Professor Simon mentioned in his lectures, they are highly efficient in sharing knowledge (No information silos) and resources (No duplicates!). In my opinion, I enjoy working in a matrix-based organization because it allows me to interact with many cross-functional partners throughout the company on any given project. Working in a project-based or functional-based organization can create divides between people/resources and make it more difficult for inter-company communication and collaboration. I enjoy being exposed to and learning from many different people and I think that is ultimately making me better at my current position. 

Does anyone else agree/disagree?

Thanks,

Matt