Department of Mechanical Engineering

Gannon University
Project Management (GENG 624)

Project 4 Due Date: TBA

When matrix organization came into existence, it was perceived to violate Henri Fayol’s
principle of “unity of command.” According to this principle an individual works for a single
manager who provides direction and orders to the individual. Many managers and professionals
felt uncomfortable with the concept of multibossed individuals and multiple bosses under matrix
organization.
Even long after matrix organization came into use, many organizations still feel uncomfortable
with the concept of matrix organization. These organizations still prefer to use the old concept of
organization having a single boss for a single individual that provides a simpler authority-
responsibility work relationship. In order to develop a further understanding the concept of
matrix organization, you are required to present a report to these organizations about matrix
organizations. Answering the following questions will help you to prepare the report.

1. What were the reasons that an alternative organizational design like “matrix” emerged in
alternative design?
2. In the organization you are familiar with, has there been an adequate effort made to define
why matrix design is used-and how that design changes the working relationships in the
organization?
3. Has your group ever been in a situation when there was no definition of what your specific
role was to be? How did you cope with such a situation? Provide example from each group
member.
4. What really helps us influence the people with whom we work-the assigned authority we
have over those individuals or our interpersonal skills in working with those people?
5. The matrix design seems to be working today, yet it is still emerging in theory and practice.
What might be the key characteristics of the organizational design of the future, which might
replace the current matrix design?

Answer:
Hay everybody,

Today I will submit my report about “MATRIX ORGINAZATION”

Matrix Organization seems not practical for the following Reasons:

 It is not good to have orders from multiple bosses.

 Even your role model boss is no longer available.
 Nobody is going to take care of you or listen to you anymore.
 Having multiple bosses is delaying your vacation for approval.
 Bosses are relaying on each other.
 Bosses are covering themselves and leaving you alone.

So, why they are creating this matrix organization and they want me to convince you
about this report lets back home and forget this dummy Matrix…….

Wait ….!
 Before you leave

Let’s Take a
Moment and think
about this “Matrix”

Let me ask you about these questions:

 We were looking to the positive side; have anyone take a look to the negative side?
  Have you ask yourself if we have good manager; how about the bad mangers.
 Have you asked yourself how many employees have had an issue with their managers,
who put them in troubles.
 How many employees work very hard and their managers took the advantage for
themselves.
 Managers translate the information wrong and caused the troubles to their employee.
Sometime cause death.

According to Gallup 70% of the American are not engaged in their work because of the job type,
economy, and managers.

What is Matrix Organization?

 According to Wikipedia Matrix Defined as

“Is the practice of managing individuals with more than one reporting line (in a matrix
organization structure”
“It is a type of organizational management in which people with similar skills are
pooled for work assignments, resulting in more than one manager.

For example, all engineers may be in one engineering department and report to an
engineering manager, but these same engineers may be assigned to different projects and report
to a different engineering manager or a project manager while working on that project.
Therefore, each engineer may have to work under several managers to get his or her job done.

 According to Project Management book

“When some people have more than one boss or project customer, it is considered a matrix
structure. A matrix structure requires greater interpersonal skills, it involves more advanced
planning, coordination, and negotiation, and it may require relaxing some formalities.”
 How it works?
1. When a Critical personnel resources need to be shared among different groups
2. When Personnel assignments may need to be rearranged without reorganizing
departments
3. When Highly specialized groups must keep in touch when working on different
tasks/projects but certain tasks must be performed together
4. When the use of a project team that is dynamic and able to view problems in a
different way as specialists have been brought together in a new environment.
5. When Project managers are directly responsible for completing the project within
a specific deadline and budget.

To develop a better understanding of the matrix design, we will analyze and answer the
following questions about this design:

Q(1). What were the reasons that an alternative organizational design like “matrix”
emerged in modern organizations?

In modern organizations the project often required:

 Number of people from different group had to work together to complete a project. Also,
Experts resources to be shared
 Reorganization of important staffs without rearranging departments; a lot of
specializations or highly focused units which have the flow of information. Most
organizations have multiple projects that have to be managed simultaneously.
 Share ideas and be updated in there are of expertise
 Jobs like salary assignment must be performed for a group of professionals working on
different task
 “Matrix” offers fast action. Delegating work to different bosses will help get the work
done more quickly. Multi-bossed individuals will take care of the work and common boss
is able to mentor their work. Team members are able to share information more readily
 The organizational system is flexible. It can achieve job goals without causing
complexity.
 Matrix organizational helps employee to participate in discussion and decision making.
 Employees and multi-bossed individual have to report to the multiple bosses and making
the working process clear to each staff.
 Promote competitions between multi-bossed individuals. These advantages help reduce
problem occurrence in the future.
 Multi-bossed individuals can choose to work in the areas that they are really like and can
be more productive.
If the matrix design were not used, what would be an effective alternative design?

There is another type called Front-Back organization. It divides an organization into two
components:
 Those that are oriented to the customer and/or the geographical region in which the
company is doing business, called the front end
 A back end that is organized by product and technology
Advantages: it focuses on more than one dimension at a time; manage cross-product
strategies and coordination

Q(2). In the organization you are familiar with, has there been an adequate effort
made to define why matrix design is used-and how that design changes the working
relationships in the organization?

It reflect on the main strategies that

 Having better resolution for complex projects that requiring mix of expertise.
 Better retention of functional specialists.
 Having better solutions to customers.
 Better job satisfaction.
 Reduced selfish and odd behavior for managers.
 Having better outputs to design and implementation.
 More effective communication between individuals and departments.
 Good development of projects.
 Stronger problem-solving base.

Q(3). Has your group ever been in a situation when there was no definition of what
your specific role was to be? How did you cope with such a situation? Provide example
from each group member
 In 2009 I hired as a Head of Electro Mechanical Department I UAE –Dubai in a
Architectural Company. My duty in that time is to review drawings that were made by
our MEP sub-Consultant. Once I hired, I found a lot of issues happened because the
drawings were used to send to MEP consultant without updating them about the situation.
Also, my duty was to review the shop drawings (Blue Prints) for the progressed projects.
My department which was consisting me only, used to run by a Civil engineer, who is
relaying on the Sub-Consultant which their benefits are their driven.
The problem is that the MEP Sub-Consultant were lacking of experience so every
time the project submit to the city to get permits you will find the rejected because of
MEP drawings. Moreover, the Sub-Consultant requests more money for correction
because they were translating the city comments as a new job not related to project
because of lack of experience.
I start investigation about the city requirements and what the city code is. I start
studying the projects and request after four months huge meeting consisting our CEO,
Projects manager, and the owners of the sub-consultants. There was a war of standards
and technology until I convinced them to follow me. The CEO of my company request
the MEP-Sub consultant to follow my decisions because his company rely on me. Since
then I started having regular meeting to put the rules and responsibilities to finish
projects.
Rules and responsibilities

 I requested the concept, project definition to get my approval before to be transmitted to

MEP sub consultant.
 Any changes in drawing must have the departments approval and signature before
process with changes
 We follow the rules that involve analyzing, clarifying, harmonizing, recording and
summarizing for each individual project.

The result from the above rules, we have had an organized company, having all good rules in
design and organized structure. I was one of the columns in this company until I got my
immigration papers to USA.

Q(4).
What really helps us influence the people with whom we work-the assigned
authority we have over those individuals or our interpersonal skills in working with those
people?
What helps to influence the people is the honesty, justice, equality, fair in your decisions
and so on. A good leader can successfully influence the working of a group through
expertise, and mutual respect. A good leader will be able to mentor his teammates, help
them with decision making, delegate tasks among his teammates and motivate them to
 improve performance. People with good social skills will also be good at networking.
They will be good at group activities and collaborating events.

Q(5). The matrix design seems to be working today, yet it is still emerging in theory and
practice. What might be the key characteristics of the organizational design of the future,
which might replace the current matrix design?

The key characteristic design for the future is unknown yet, but we can predict the future
by using the core elements. Core Elements is the vital of this organization. Employees are
the most important aspects of the organization. The cores are mentioned below:

Work Specialization
Work specialization, also referred to as the division of labor, is the degree to which specific tasks within an organization are
broken down into individual jobs. When work specialization is extensive, a company may assign a single task to an individual as
part of a larger project. Often, this type of environment creates repetitive, narrow, smaller tasks. For example, assembly line
factories may designate a single task, such as running a machine or welding a part, for the completion of an end product. On the
other hand, companies may decide to enlarge jobs for the purpose of challenging employees or giving them additional
responsibilities.

Departmentalization
Departmentalization describes the way in which an organization groups different jobs or segments of its company together. For
example, a functional organizational structure groups jobs according to function, such as marketing, sales, customer service and
manufacturing. An organization that uses a divisional approach groups according to geography, such as a western and eastern
region. Other forms of departmentalization include product, customer or market departmentalization.

Hierarchy of Authority
Hierarchy of authority -- or chain of command -- refers to an organization's line of authority and describes who reports to whom.
Related to hierarchy of authority is the span of control, which refers to the number of subordinates over which managers have
authority. Organizational structures can either be flat or tall. Flat structures have fewer levels of authority and wide spans of
control. For example, a small startup company may position the CEO at the top, who has authority over all other company
employees. Tall organizational structures, such as larger companies and corporations, have many levels of authority and narrow
spans of control.

Line and Staff Relationships

Line and staff relationships extend throughout the organizational structure and describe the way people are involved in the
organization. Line managers are responsible for achieving company objectives or goals and include those in the direct line or
chain of command. Staff employees or managers give advice or make recommendations to line managers and support the overall
operations. In retail corporations, for example, line employees may include department managers, store managers, the vice
president and president of operations, and the board of directors. In contrast, a scientific research organization may have scientists
and researchers as line managers and administrative employees as staff employees.
Decentralization and Centralization
Decentralized organizational structures spread decision-making responsibilities to lower-level managers and some nonmanagerial
employees. In contrast, a centralized organization maintains control and decision-making responsibilities near the top of the
company. For example, companies that have franchise operations may centralize control at company headquarters. Whether a
company is decentralized or centralized, however, may depend on several factors, such as how many hierarchical levels the
organization has or the extent to which a company is geographically dispersed.

References:

 http://www.salon.com/
2013/06/19/70_percent_of_americans_emotionally_disconnected_at_work_partner/
 Gannon Book
 http://www.google.com/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A
 %2F%2Fwps.prenhall.com%2Fwps%2Fmedia%2Fobjects
%2F4975%2F5094860%2FPowerPoints
%2Fandre_16.ppt&ei=GVOOUpW8KsrdsATioIDwDg&usg=AFQjCNFk3UfDtu74RztA
JI5k3okKPKkrkQ
 http://smallbusiness.chron.com/forms-characteristics-organizational-structure-24655.html