Multi Projects Case Study

In a matrix structure, each employee answers to two immediate supervisors: a department supervisor and a project manager. The department supervisor is charged with overseeing employees in a functional area such as marketing or engineering. Project supervisors manage a specific and often impermanent project. They absorb employees from various functional areas to complete their project teams. This kind of organizational structure has several advantages especially if the project managers identify their team strengths and weakness early. Directing the staff with effective leadership skills is a key role as a project manager. A clear direction of the project from start to completion is vital. Therefore, the project managers must carry top notch planning and organizational skills. To follow the WBS and have a clear understanding of the importance of remaining on budget throughout the entire project is mandatory. The experienced project manager must keep planning, staffing, budgeting and scheduling and other control techniques under wrap, by utilizing their administrative skill according to Project Management, (Kerzner, 2013). Although the administrative and other techniques are important, in this particular project, each project manager must work closely as a team member and example. Building the team and each departmental manager into a working cohesive team, could be the true

The main challenge facing Multi Project Inc. matrix structure is how the organisation communicates between the various departments. Understanding how various department heads and project managers share resources and what the shared resource roles are under the department head and within the project.

Successful organizations are always looking for ways to improve process and procedures, increase revenues and profits, while staying relevant in today’s business world. Strong leadership is the backbone of any organization and is the catalyst for driving a culture of innovation and change. Organizations looking to make small or large-scale changes typically do so through the implementation of work projects. Projects are collaborative efforts carefully planned and designed to achieve a specific goal. According to Young (2010), “projects take careful planning, and a successful project is one that is done on time and within budget” (p.344). Project management is the activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, while monitoring procedures and timelines, and usually has an assigned project manager (PM). Organizations such as Apple are known to have many projects in motion at any given time. This many projects happening simultaneously can be extremely complex, expensive, and taxing on resources, but somehow Apple has managed to implement project after project with huge success.

16. Zara’s store managers place orders that reflect their localized needs. However, order fulfillment is ultimately the responsibility of the commercial team in headquarters because:

Matrix – is a permanently designed to reach detailed results using employees from other areas within the company (Chand, n.d.). This structure uses a horizontal reporting within the hierarchical function structure. Some of the advantages are distributing decision making, strong project co-ordination, and there is a fast and flexible response to change. There is, however, the cost of administration is high, authority and responsibility can be confusing, and group decision making can be exaggerated. Within this structure, there are functional and product managers. The functional managers oversee the daily task of functions to keep the business going whereas the product manager oversees getting the products

Organizational structure is the most crucial element for the success of any business. This is because of the way it facilitates and supports the management system of the organization. It is through the structure that specialization and differentiation are attained. For effective management of the employees, different firms employ different structures for the organization that is unique to its operation and the organization culture.

Top executives and other employees located in different positions operate corporation projects together, thus improved coordination of activities (Lewis, 2012). Besides, matrix organization model allows MCS to make use of the experts’ skills and knowledge better by pulling them from their respective offices and allocating them different responsibilities in running the business projects.

Advantages include utilizing resources efficiently because individuals from different departments can come together to work on one project which also reduces cost. Therefore, collaboration within the organization increases and people are able to learn from each other then utilize that knowledge and skills on other projects. Moreover, matrix structure results in improved risk and conflict resolution. Since employees have two reporting managers, they are able to report potential issues without the risk of it being overlooked and resolved faster. This also results in better flow of information in the overall organization, speeding the decision making

“A matrix organizational structure represents the middle ground between functional and project structures. Personnel often report both to a functional manager and one or more project managers” (Schwalbe, 2014). In the CDB project Corporate Banking, Corporate Trust, and Consumer banking involve to this project. Project Management Office is a good way to coordinate the contradiction between those divisions.

Organizational structure is a system that consists of explicit and implicit institutional rules and policies designed to outline how various work roles and responsibilities are delegated, controlled and coordinated. Organizational structure also determines how information flows from level to level within the company (investopedia.com, 2017). If one level or department does not undertake its function accurately the entire business suffers, because all the departments interrelated to each other. There are generally four types of organizational structure:

As seen from figure 2, the matrix organisational structure is complex and aligns functional and divisional organisational structures merged into a hierarchical structure. The student observes that with this comes the potential to on the one hand, improve interdepartmental collaboration through avoiding silo-functioning and yet, on the other hand, blur the unity of command structure in an organisation that can be counterproductive. A critical analysis of two major advantages and disadvantages of this organisational structure here

Manager’s of an organization has to use structure to help the company run efficiently. “The five types of organizational structures are functional, divisional, matrix, team-based, and virtual network” (Draft, 2013, p.316). Functional structure in an organization that is developed by grouping departments by the skills, level of knowledge, activities done daily, and the resource used. “This structure places specific departments from the bottom to the top” (Draft, 2013, p.318). For example, specific departments such as: human resources, accounting, engineering, and manufacturing are placed at the top, while there are mostly seen at the bottom in other organizations. While common functions such as; people, facilities, and other resources are combined together as a single department instead of being divided into multiple departments.

Structure and hierarchy come from how work and the work processes are coordinated together and relating how tasks and coordination of these tasks is to be obtained. When determining the authority in the structure of an organization, there are two major options, centralized and decentralized. A centralized organizational setup is where the authority to make important decisions is retained by managers at the top of the created hierarchy whereas a decentralized organizational setup is where the authority to make important decisions about organizational resources and to initiate new projects is delegated to managers at all levels in the hierarchy. Each choice is made based upon the main goal/task of the organization and what would better fit the organization. Whether work/the

1. Discuss the project management organization on the project. Strengths? Weaknessess? Recommendations. Parks Corporation used a matrix project management organization on the Blue Spider Project. It was a multi-disciplinary team where the members came from different functional units such as Research and Development, Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality Control, Purchasing, and Finance. Gary Anderson, the Project Manager, was responsible for the project but his responsibility for performance of the individual phases of the work to be accomplished on the project remained with the functional managers. Anderson assigned, monitored, and coordinated work among the project team. But, the functional managers had

The advantages that the matrix structure will provide to Ritz Carlton is that there will be an improved sense of commitment and dedication on behalf of employees to their jobs. This is an opportunity for them to pursue skills which are bases on their interest. The employees will find this more motivating and satisfying. Moreover the usage of resources is maximised as new products and changes can be incorporated quickly by moving and regrouping the teams based on the necessity.