Choosing an appropriate organizational type brings with its tradeoffs. Every type has advantages and disadvantages, and these can vary depending on the size and culture of an organization. In very small companies, a flat hierarchical structure where "everyone does everything" is very common, and may the most effective way for that company to function. Meanwhile, a massive corporation would be crippled if forced to use such a structure and would be much better off with a highly matrixed structure.
One issue companies often face is the change that comes with expansion. As companies develop and grow larger, they often must change their internal structures to accommodate their increased size. Departmentalization may be necessary, but changing the structure is not without expense and issues. These growing pains can be potentially very difficult, and handling this is possibly the CEO's most important job at this phase for a company.
As such, it is hard to say that any particular structure is the most effective. It depends on the specific needs of a company.
Depending on the size of the company, its resources and number of projects the company holds can influence the best type of organizational method. For smaller businesses a project bases organizational structure I think works best. Project organizational structure refers to the creation of an independent project team, they have their own technical staff and management, enterprise assigns certain resources to project team, and grant project manager of the largest free implementation of the project. The disadvantages are that is a company has several projects; they will have a divided effort. Therefore this technique works best for smaller companies. For larger companies a Matrix organization structure might work best. Matrix organizational structure is a hybrid form; it loads a level of project management structure on the functional hierarchical structure. According to the relative power of project managers and functional managers, in practice there are different types Functional Matrix, Project Matrix, and a Balance Matrix. Each type has a varying about of power given to each manager or a balanced amount. For example, if our class was a large each team would be made up of various people from different department. This closely resembles a matrix structure.
Based on my experience, a functional organization seems to work well in large companies. Yes, a disadvantage is the creation of silos but that can always be resolved. Having an IT, marketing, finance, quality, manufacturing departments allows the members of those departments to specialize in a specific tract within that department. Therefore, when it comes to working together, you can ask the department lead for a certain skillset and they will have a person qualified to take on the project. One issue with functional organization is getting each department to understand their boundaries. If you have a common goal, then it is easier to work together but each department should not interfere into other department responsibilities. Each department should get to know each other and know their responsibility and then move on from there.
I think the matrix organization is best simply because the advantages are centered around multiple control. There always a second opinion. Thought that can be difficulty to deal with sometime and may cause delays, it gives a higher degree to validation behind all the decision made. I think that the success of individual groups depends on all the moving parts ability to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses. But as a whole I think the matrix organization has a more structured system for success when considering the advantages vs, the disadvantages.
I believe that the strategy is to manage resources based on needs and good planning as well. However, I agree with sa596's answer. If the project manager has good communication with other department and functional manager understands needs, then the matrix organizational structure is the best-suited structure for many companies. Even though matrix organizational structure will have many bosses and conflicts with resource allotment, the big advantage is that every department knows everyone else and forming a project team is much easier.
I think the best strategy over here would be one in which company can utilize its resources to the fullest. So i would say from company point of view Matrix organization are very effective where it can get its employee worth the money it pays. But from employees point of view this would be to much pressure and work to juggle with and this would work against the company in a way that it would affect there productivity. So I think something which can be a fusion of the two would really be effective in this case. For example a organization which works as a Matrix but it would allow employee to be there only on two project at a time and one project would be primary project and other would be a secondary one. The projects that are allocated should be such that they dont have overlapping deadline. Something like this in a matrix orgam=nisation would really be helpful for both the business and also its employee
I agree with Anthony Monaco that the choice of an organization structures depends on the size of the company. I must also add that the type of structure chosen also depends on the aims and the type of industry that an organization operates in. It is important to note that poorly designed organizational structures will often lead to inefficient and sluggish communications. Well-designed structures, on the other hand, will lead to efficient communication thus encouraging fast and clean decisions. I also agree with jtl27 that functional organization structures are the most effective. This structure happens to be most commonly used, and it employs a top down approach with high ranking executives at the top. In this structure, departments are run separately by department heads who report to top level managers. This structure is easy to understand, but it can be frustrating in instances where the executive at the top is poorly organized.
Just like you, I have worked in both the structure too. In my opinion, I definitely liked the small organization where everyone is doing everything. Because, in the absence of one, other knows what is going on and how to do it. I feel it is more uniform than big organization. In big pharma, it gets hard to do someone's part since everyone do it everything different and the substitute or temporary scientist doesn't know how to do it or doesn't do it the same way.
I think that the best organizational structure would be a mix between functional organization and matrix. There aren’t silos and information is given to everyone in the department depending on the project. Even though you are reporting to more than one person, this means everything will stay in check and on track. You have to make sure there are no collisions between schedules when doing this. No one is doing all the work all at once. There are multiple people working together to achieve one goal and report to someone with their results. I also believe this is the most effective because all the information is in the open for people to work together. There is knowledge transferred from project to project within the departments and no project or department silos.
An organization involving all structures at various levels could be very effective. A fundamentally functional organization with special project team to handle critical project. A team that may have many of the characteristics of a project team in a projectized organization. The team may include full time staff from different functional departments, may develop its own set of operating procedures and may operate outside the standard, formalized reporting structure.
The choice of the structure depends on the size of the company, the way the organization is structured influence to manage and run the project. I think functional structure organization is a common type of organization structure where the team members work for the specific department such as engineering, human resource, Information technology. In functional structure Easy to coordinate events within a department. It is easy to coordinate events within a department and the projects are done within the department. In this the decision is usually made by one person. It works well for the small team and small projects. It is quick to get everyone together to resolve problems and queries related to the project.
Organization effectiveness is the efficiency with which an association is able to meet its objectives. every organization should operate with organizational structure. The best structure can be done by answering some question like : What are the functional grouping of work processes? Are there natural grouping of teams, work groups or units ? ….. In my opinion Matrix Organizational is the good one, This kind of organization may have members of different groups working together to develop a new product line. The advantage of a matrix organizational is that employees have responsibility not only for their department but for organizational projects. A challenge with this type of organization presents itself when employees are given direction from two different managers and they need to prioritize their work responsibilities.
In my opinion the best organization structure is the matrix.
It provides the best balance between maximizing human resources utilization and role specific development via representation at the a the role specific department manager level.
I think it offers also a better capacity to advocate for role specific development via representation at the a the role specific department manager level. This kind of representation tends to be less available from a project-based organizational structure. Since apart from a project manager other role specific position lack authority.
Alternatively, while the functional organization offers much capacity for role specific development it tends to lack cohesiveness within project teams.
However, from a device development perspective, i think the most effective structure is the project-based organization. The reason for this is a project based organization facilitates team cohesiveness within a project team much more than any of the other organizational structures. Almost like having a startup environment within a larger company
In my opinion matrix organization because you will get chance to get to know lot people and also because you can learn new stuff as you will be working with people from different departments. By being in matrix organization you can find out if other department interests you and can probably switch departments if have knowledge. Also because people more likely to share information in matrix organization then other organizations as mentioned in lecture.
I think most effective organization would be project base organization because that way you want be waiting on other departments availability, you will have your own department. Also because project tend to run well after everyone gets use to it and projects after the first projects will follow through easily then first time.
In my opinion, I think that matrix organizations are the most effective types of organizations. Since employees are still part of a functional department, it can be easier for them to align on certain strategies within their department so that it can be consistent in all of the project that the employees are working on. Matrix organizations are also beneficial because if a project team member who is behind or is not contributing then the project manager can go to the manager of that department and request more assistance or a different project team member.
