Before the 1970s, usually large business corporations were organized in silos, which are logical divisions of workers in which a group of people reported to a line or functional manager. The attempt to create a successful restructuring of the organization in order to develop workable project management teams is known as a matrix organization.
Several different categories of matrix organizations exist. In each, the goal is to create a balance of power between each manager's particular functional needs. The primary types of matrices include: The Weak Matrix, Strong Matrix, and Balanced Matrix organizational structure. This article will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the weak matrix organization structure.
Weak Matrix Organizational Structure
Organizational structures organized according to this method can be difficult for the project manager, because he or she essentially becomes a project facilitator. These managers can plan and evaluate project implementation, but they do not possess any actual authority over the workers, and hence rely almost entirely on the resources of functional managers.
The workers then possess little attachment either to the project or to these project managers. This occurs because only the functional managers within the organization are responsible for promotions. Furthermore, because a worker's performance evaluation is primarily dependent upon the work completed for the functional manager, rather than on a project, this project may actually become a burden. Projects take away from valuable functional work performance, and so they may be very unmotivated to perform for the project manager.
Worse, because the project manager possesses no actual authority over the members of his or her team, he or she will be able only to report the lack of nonperformance to a functional manager. These reports are made hoping, often in vain, that the functional managers will expect the worker to focus his efforts on that project.
Don't forget, however, each functional manager must maintain responsibility for work performance in his or her particular functional area, so those workers that are engaged in project-related tasks often decrease the productivity of the functional unit. As a result, significant conflict occurs between project managers, functional managers, and individual workers.
In such a situation, the loser is usually the project manager. This type of matrix management design is easily remembered as a design with a weak project manager.
Daiv Russell is a marketing and management consultant with Envision Consulting in Tampa, Florida. Learn more about
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