My work setting seems to fit best as a matrix-type of organization. There are functional departments as well as project teams and project managers. However, while there are projects that involve various departments, there are also projects within departments. There are also projects within department sub-groups. Because of this complexity, project managers don't really have much power per se. It seems that for the most part the functional managers are the ones with most of the power. Within my own department (research), our projects don't really involve other departments until there is promise of delivering on an Investigational New Drug application; however, the research projects require various groups within research. This is where there have been power struggles because the group in which I have been got subdivided into two different groups and instead of my manager being the sole manager, now he has to deal with the manager of the new group. Since some projects are led by my manager and some by the other manager, the two fight over personnel resources. This is very frustrating for me because they usually have fought over what projects I will be working. Keep in mind that this is a small company and thus there is not much oversight of each department because in theory it should be easier for a department head to manage a small department. I don't mind the matrix organization, but I would prefer to be in a larger company setting where power roles are more demarcated.

I would like to work for a matrix type organization. Matrix type seem flexible to the changes in its environment. Those types of organizations can shift focuses and resources toward major problems and products. It creates a challenging mood in the organization which promotes innovation. It can be difficult for the project manager to assemble the team and get the team to synchronize together for every different project. Also as mentioned in the lecture, overlapping of workload can be difficult as each team member functions under one project manager and one functional manager.

- Lamiaa Abdelaziz

In my current company, the organization type is a mix between functional and a project based organization. There are individual departments ranging from Hardware Eng, Quality, Software Eng, Systems Eng, Marketing, and Manufacturing. There certainly are silos, but for those of us in the R&D group that are not working on the on market product, there are projects where those of us from different groups come together. For example, we are currently writing protocols for 510k submissions and I work with engineers from the software, hardware, and the quality department (basically those in the R&D group). I do not mind the set up because I mainly deal with the different engineers in the research and development group, and I have also had some conversations with those working on the on-market product. I think this setup of structure works mainly due to its size, where there are about 200 employees, so everybody interacts with one another at one point.

I am not sure what type of organization my job is. It seems to be a mixture of functional and matrix. Project managers are assigned to a project from their manager and the project can expand to different departments/groups depending on the stage of the project. My current project involves R&D, robotics, sample management and high throughput. Yet each department is structured like a functional organization where you have a manager who makes important decisions. It is not only one person but all functional managers making decisions based on their resources and workload. I guess it is not always clear cut?

I would like to work in a matrix organizational structure team. My understanding is that a matrix organizational structure is a company structure in which the reporting relationships are set up as a grid, or matrix, rather than in the traditional hierarchy. In other words, employees have dual reporting relationships - generally to both a functional manager and a product manager. Apart from what have been given from the lecture, advantages that I can think also include:
Resources can be used efficiently, since experts and equipment can be shared across projects.
Products and projects are formally coordinated across functional departments.
Information flows both across and up through the organization.
Employees are in contact with many people, which helps with sharing of information and can speed the decision process.

Currently, I work for a company that employs the functional organization structure. This helps in allowing all the smaller specialized groups to focus on our certain tasks at any specific point of a project. For instance, in R&D I’m solely engrossed in working and developing any direct engineering work for said project. What I mean by this is, I have no input from regulatory or quality, till after everything is said and done and they come back with input. There are disadvantages to this due to the lack in flexibility at times and lack of crossover between groups, until signatures are needed unfortunately. This is possibly to increase the speed and workflow since all of the specialized workgroups are in departments together and are able to pool all their resources on that specific task at hand.
-Tarek

Hi All,

Currently I work for a Matrix Organization. While I work currently as a Functional Manager because we are a start-up we work on many other side projects. This allows for many of the functional managers to become project managers for projects that we are conducting rather than our normal workload. I very much enjoy this type of organization as it allows for us to have a good balance of day to day activities while also focusing on projects. As Dr. Simon mentioned, situations do arise where I may lose staff due to these projects, but overall these situations are handled very well.

-Andrew Nashed

In my company, I work in a project-based/matrix-based combination of an organization. There are multiple projects going on at a time and each project has it's team. However, the teams are made up of staff from different departments (R&D, regulatory, marketing, tech leads) who also are part of at least one other project for their respective role. I've noticed particularly that there is limited knowledge sharing between different projects since each one runs independent of another. For each project, there is usually a scientific lead/engineer running the specific project but another manager we must report to that manages all persons of a specific role (for example, all R&D engineers). It can be messy at times, with communication lacking between project members, but it does help to meet every week as a project team to discuss progress.

Hi,

A organization structure defines a reporting relationship in company.I currently work in a functional organization. Once we get a project, we work as a team and submit the project on time .We do not have any communication with other department.Being the part of good team is what really matters here and there is only sharing of information within the team sometimes result in lack of understanding. I also had an opportunity to work in matrix organization while i was doing method validation. I was the one from quality department. One of the main advantage, is that I know different people from different function and sharing lot of input/resources. And being the part of matrix organization was a great experience for me.

-Irene lloyd

I think my organization is a matrix type, but it also falls into a few othe categories from the website that another classmate posted ( http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/team-structure-diagrams#sm.00000pxiq60kn9dkivhcsc0fqkmx8).

We have a CEO, VPs of different functional groups but also of different franchises which represent markets. But because we have 2 main products, they overlap, a lot. Projects are always running into each other or hitting the same areas at the same times. We also struggle a lot with resourcing because we don;t have many redundant resources in key areas like Quality, Engineering, and Maintenance. But there are core teams of people who are very knowlegable and spread that information to everyone. We also all know each other becasue we all work together on different teams.

So the company I would like to be in is a matrix organization because a matrix organization is one that
" brings together employees and managers from different departments to work toward accomplishing a goal" it is a large sense of team working to accomplish the goal, and that way the employees feel they have the resources and materials needed to acomplish the tasks at hand. This type of business I enjoy and its a win win type senerio.

Hi,
In one my past job, I worked in a "Self directed cross functional team", which I enjoyed and saw as having many advantages.This included creativity, such as each member offering an alternative perspective to the problem and potential solution to the task. However, without a good coach or leader, these team can easily fail if consensus is not reached on any decision within a project.
I currently work in the a Matrix organization, which is typical in most companies today. There are multiple project running at once, involving multiple departments and each employee are direct reports, plus they have a project manager which they are report to for each project.

In my current job, I work in a project based/matrix organization. Depending on the need, I am pulled into projects outside my direct functional therapeutic area as needed. I like the matrix structure since it allows for enhanced growth and career development. It is a great opportunity to work with diverse areas across the organization and continue to stretch in one's personal experience. I find that the sharing of resources works well especially when it comes to filling company's goals as well as personal. In the company I work for there are what are called , accelerate to value which are prioritized. So in a sense projects are triaged on level of priority , this allows for additional opportunity to work under stringent timelines or relaxed depending on the demand.

My current work environment is a matrix organization. Within the procurement department, I have had the opportunity to be involved in different projects and collaborate with different SME’s throughout J&J in the medical device and pharma sector. It is an ideal environment due to being able involve in different projects that gain skills that can facilitate a project later down the road. There are times that I have been involved in projects with my manager that our team have not tackled before. But due to that initial involvement, the following ones that we know are similar we don’t spend so much time in the brainstorming stage and jump directly into the deliverable.