Matrix Organisation

A project organization can be structured in primarily three different ways. The project organization can either be structured as functional or project orientated or as a matrix organization. A functional orientated organization is when the managers primarily are specialists and analytical oriented within their field of specialty. Also, the manager is a technical supervisor. A project oriented organization is more generalist in their management. They are often a facilitator with a general experience in managing diverse projects. (Dunn, 2001) The advantage of a functional project organization is the enhancement of the technological development by allowing the different involved employees to focus on their field of expertise, which also enables pooling of resources among different projects. These technical capabilities are important for a company to continuously improve their development of products. However, a consequence of this type of organization is the difficulty in coordinating these specialized resources among different projects. This can cause a late delivery of the project or an increase in the costs because additional technical personnel must be procured. (Ford and Randolph, 1992) The strength and weakness of the functional orientated organization is the opposite of the project orientated organization. When the organization is project focused, it allocates the resources needed to complete the project and thereby ensuring a successfully delivered project. The consequences of this are the technical development is limited to the project, which causes the technical development to fall behind, because the focus is on the individual projects. (Galbraith, 1971)