Organizing Technical Activities

Prepared by: Darrel Quintinita Aizel Joy Galleta

Chapter Content
Reasons for Organizing Organizing Defined The Purpose of Structure The Formal Organization Informal Group Types of Organizational Structures Types of Authority The Purpose of Commitees

INTRODUCTION
The engineer manager needs to acquire various skills in management, including those for organizing technical activities. In this highly competitive environment, the unskilled manager will not be able to bring his unit, or his company, as the case may be, to success.

The opportunities offered by skillful organizing are too important for the engineer to ignore. This chapter is intended to provide the engineer with some background and insights in organizing.

REASONS FOR ORGANIZING

Organizing is undertaken to facilitate the implementation of plans. In effective organizing, steps are undertaken to break down the total job into more manageable man-size jobs. Doing these will make it possible to assign particular tasks to particular persons. In turn, these will help facilitate the assignment of authority, responsibility, and accountability for certain functions.

ORGANIZING DEFINED
Organizing is a management function which refers to the structuring of resources and activities to accomplish objectives in an efficient and effective manner. The arrangement or relationships of positions within an organization is called the structure. The result of the organizing process is called the structure.

The purpose of the structure

1. It defines the relationships between tasks and authority for individuals and departments. 2. It defines formal reporting relationships, the number of levels in the hierarchy of the organization, and the span of control. 3. It defines the groupings of individuals into departments and departments into organization. 4. It defines the system to effect coordination of effort in both vertical (authority) and horizontal (tasks) directions.

When constructing an organization, the engineer manager must be concerned with the following:
1. Division of labor - determining the scope of work and how it is combined in a job. 2. Delegation of authority- the process of assigning various degrees of decisionmaking authority to subordinates. 3. Departmentation- the grouping of related jobs, activities, or processes into a major organizational sub-units.

4. Span of control- the number of people who report directly to a given manager. 5. Coordination- the linking of activities in the organization that serves to achieve a common goal or objective.

THE FORMAL ORGANIZATION

The formal organization is the structure that details lines of responsibilities, authority, and position. What is depicted in the organization chart is the formal organization. It is the planned structure and it represents the deliberate attempt to establish patterned relationships among components that will meet the objective effectively.

The formal structure is described by management through:

1. Organization chart 2. Organizational manual 3. Policy manuals

Organization chart- it is a diagram of the organizations official positions and formal lines of authority. Organizational Manuals- it provides written descriptions of authority relationships, details the functions of major organizational units, and describes job procedures Policy manual- it describes personnel activities and company policies.

Organizations may be classified into three types. They are the following:
1. Functional organization- this is form of departmentalization in which everyone engaged in one functional activity, such as engineering or marketing, is grouped into one unit. 2. Product or market organization- this refers to the organization of a company by divisions that brings together all those involved with a certain of product or customer. 3. Matrix organization- an organizational structure in which each employee reports to both a functional or division manager and to a projector or group manager.

Informal Groups
Informal groups are instances when members of an organization spontaneously form a group with friendships as a principal reason for belonging. It is not a part of the formal organization and it does not have a formal performance purpose. Informal groups are oftentimes very useful in the accomplishment of major tasks, especially if these tasks conform with the expectations of the members of the informal group. The Engineer Manager is, therefore, warned that he must be on the lookout for the possible difficulties that the informal groups may do to the organization. It will be to his best interest if he could make the informal groups work for the organization.

Reasons or Factors for Joining a Group

Friendship Common Interests
Like: concern for environment of love for classical music

Proximity
which gives people the chance to share ideas, opinions, and feelings

Need Satisfaction
which is derived from unions, cultural societies, fraternities, etc.

WHICH PROPEL PEOPLE TO FORM

Collective Power
which is derived from unions, fraternities, etc.

OR JOIN

AN INFORMAL GROUP

Group Goals
which attract individuals like consumer society, sports club, etc.