Project Management Organizational Approach - Research Paper Example

Project Management Organizational Approach Project Management Organizational Approach Any firm is organized around a certain organizational structure based on the principle of specialization (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). The organizational structure allows a firm to utilize its resources to meet its objectives. When an organizational structure proves to be inadequate, the structure is reorganized thereby changing the nature of specialization (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). The emergence of project-oriented enterprises has impacted the way organizations are structured. Three forms of organizational structure that house projects include functional, pure product, and matrix. Each form of organizational structure has its strengths and weaknesses, and is able to handle particular projects based on the context. Functional organizational structure involves divisions based on major functional areas such as marketing, finance, human resource, manufacturing, and so on (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). Functional organizational allows flexibility in staff planning and resource allocation because functional divisions can act as the administrative base for a project. Further the functional unit may be specialized to tackle the project thereby providing the technical expertise required to successfully complete the project. Additionally functional structure allows the technical expertise and know-how to be concentrated in the units and hence available to work on different projects. The staff can be shifted from one project to another while the functional division continues to provide a pool of experiences and specialized staff (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). The functional division acts as the center of specialists which ensures availability of specialized staff to work on different projects. The presence of experienced staff also enables the relevant expertise to be channeled into the project for successful execution and completion of the project. Lastly, the functional organizational structure organizes the specialists in a unit so that the arrangement not only helps in project execution but also in the advancement of the appropriate talent. A downside to functional organizational form is that it puts clients at the backseat. Often client interests are not the focus but functional units focus more on the work and how the expert staff is allocated to the projects (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). This sometimes leads to client interests to be ignored. The fact that the functional organizational form deals with functional areas means that the form is more inclined towards the activities involved in the project completion. It is more focused towards solving problems than client interests. Also because functional form allocates tasks according to expertise there is no single individual who is responsible for the whole project. It may seem that the project manager is responsible however the project manager is only accountable for a few areas of the project. Other individuals are made responsible for other parts of the project. This also leads to lack of coordination within the project team as different members may be responsible for different tasks (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). Furthermore, many issues may get ignored because they fall outside the functional interests. Also, people involved in projects that are being executed under the functional form have weak motivations. Furthermore, communication across other divisions is fairly slow mainly because of disproportionate focus on functional interests. Some of the downsides to functional organizational form are solved by the pure product organizational form which creates division within division (Kerzner, 2009). Pure product form is also known as projectized organization (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). This allows the whole project to be managed by the program manager who has the authority over the tasks comprising the project. In the functional organizational form however no single individual is responsible for the whole project (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). Hence, the pure product form allows the program manager to have control over the entire project. The program manager assigns tasks and also provides reviews so that the project tasks can be improved. All team members are responsible to report to the project manager (Meredith and Mantel, 2012). This also strengthens communication as well as coordination. In functional organizational form however communication flow is weak and often the members have to work in an uncoordinated fashion. While pure product organizations have access to staff with the relevant qualification and expertise, the staff is not shared or transferred to other projects unlike in functional organizational form. This implies that individuals involved in one project cannot work on another project which ensures that the focus is being channeled towards a particular project only. Doing so increases cost and this is a major disadvantage of adopting pure product organizational form. The fact that staff cannot be moved into other projects creates a problem. Costs are increased drastically which makes the approach expensive (Kerzner, 2009). In addition pure product organizational form assigns members to projects long after they are needed. This makes motivating the staff difficult because members cannot go back to projects and hence the staff does not have a place to return to once the project is completed. The people are kept in an overhead pool so that selection for the next project can be made from this pool (Kerzner, 2009). However the pool only serves as an overhead pool and many people become uneasy once a project nears completion. At this point each member of the staff tries to prove his worth. Therefore pure product organization limits the opportunities for staff for growth and this may reduce motivation for many employees. On the other hand a functional organizational form allows quite a lot o opportunity for the staff to work on diverse projects and to be moved from one project to another. Additionally tem members working under functional organization form have better access to the talent that is readily available for different projects. Hence it is evident that both pure product and functional organizational forms have their own advantages and disadvantages. Functional organizations easily allow team members to be shifted back and forth between different projects however this is not possible in pure product (projectized) organizations. However functional organization forms lack coordination due to lack of a single authoritative manager however pure product organizations solve this by making the project or program manager the point of reference. This eases communication and encourages feedback. The matrix organization has attributes that address the issues with functional organizational forms and pure product organizational forms. The matrix organization is a composite of the two forms of organizational structure – pure product and functional. The matrix organization can take many forms inclined towards either pure product or functional forms or balanced. In a matrix organization each project manager is responsible for his own project however they report directly the general manager (Kerzner, 2009). Each functional area has its own department manager which ensures effective communication and coordination between the elements. However the project manager has considerable responsibility to keep the communication flow seamless. Failure to do so results in poor coordination and discourages the environment that aims at solving problems. The upside of matrix organization is that the project manager retains full control of a project including its costs and staffing (Kerzner, 2009). The costs can also be greatly minimized and so can conflicts. Functional organizations work best for projects that deal with a specific functional area for example the project of developing and implementing an enterprise management system for organization will involve the IT department. Product organizations can be used by organizations based around strategic business units. For instance, a retail company can make divisions based on their market offerings. Lastly, matrix organizations can be used by manufacturing organizations to integrate their projects and organizational functions. References Kerzner, H. (2009). Project Management (10th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Meredith, J. R. (2012). Project Management: A Managerial Approach (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Read More