Question

Part A – Organizational Management (Functional, Project, Matrix Organizations)
A company is undertaking several complex large-scale high-technology design-build projects, requiring many high skilled engineers (structural, electrical, mechanical, piping, other). Most of the engineers are in such high-demand that they are working on more than one project concurrently.
As the project manager in charge of one such project, which form of organization (of the 3 discussed in “Organization Structures for PM”) do you recommend implementing?
Explain why the 2 other forms would be inefficient or ineffective.
Which organization structure (Project, Functional and Matrix) is most representative of the “CM at Risk” project delivery system described in the recent course materials on Contracts and Project Delivery Systems?

Answer 1

Since, there will be many projects going on simultaneously and coordination between the departments will be an important factor, matrix organization structures should be preferred. This structure gives authority to both functional manager and project manager unlike the other two structures in which either of the two are given authority.

In functional structure, the work is divided into different departments with different resources which makes the cross departmental communication poor but in these projects it is already said that engineers will be working on more than one project concurrently. Further, in this structure, project manager are not given authority. Thus, this structure cannot be adopted.

In Project organization structure, the project manager decides the schedule of the project and how the team is to be formed. Here, communication is more and engineers can have exposure to different nature of work. But, engineers will be working on more than one high scaled project concurrently and they will be under huge stress all the time. This will decrease the efficiency of the engineers and may also add to error in the outcome.

To maintain the balance and coordination, matrix structure will be best as the project manager will be working together with functional managers managing the coordination of activities. The only thing here to be take care of is, the line of authority should be clearly defined for both project manager and the functional managers and there should be no confusion.

Project organization structure is most representative of Construction Manager at risk ( CM at risk ) project delivery system. because in CM at risk, CM does the managing and coordination of the project with owner's interest in mind including the cost and other financial aspects of the project.