Until the 1970s, many big business organizations functioned in silos. They were groups of workers who worked in secluded groups and were subordinate to line or functional managers. Consider an example of several columns on a page. A line manager is the leader of each column, and each line manager oversees the activity of one worker group. Since these groups operated independently, some work functions were repeated by each silo.

For example, one Information Technology company may have software programmers in the customer service department, the finance department, and on development teams because each of those divisions has needed computer programmers to fulfill their job requirements.

The 1970s signaled an evolution in business. Organizational operations were improving at a dramatic rate in many ways. One of these was the innovation of the Matrix Organizational Structure.

To illustrate the operation of a matrix organization, consider the information technology company described previously. Everyone who functions as a computer programmer is organized into a single department, which reports into a manager who supervises them. This manager would oversee nearly all programming functions of the company. In this type of format, line managers are usually known as functional managers because they supervisor individuals who perform a similar function.

Similarly to how the columnar organizational tables of a matrix functions, workers in this type of institution are categorized according to skills sets and are grouped into "silos." Every silo contains a single full-time manager that workers report and are accountable to. The manager is given responsibility for the promotion of workers, departmental budgeting, and the general administrative run of the silo.

With what we have covered thus far, it may appear that a matrix organization and a traditional company have similar structures excepting the categorization of each silo’s workers based on their duties. Another notable exception between the two is that a matrix is ordered into rows or lines, which extend across each column.

The old fashioned organizational approaches were reasonably effective but highly inefficient. There was a great deal of unnecessary duplicated effort, which was particularly obvious when it came to project management. Sadly, there was no recognition of the beehive or anthill functionality observed when a team is assigned to a single project. Here, team members were assigned to different functions and reported to different supervisors instead of reporting to the PM. As you would expect, disorganization resulted and eventual failure was all but ensured.

A matrix organization works like an excel spreadsheet. It involves columns with co-workers that have the same responsibilities and the functional manager is the lead supervisor. With rows that stretch with each column, the project manager is the supervisor. The project manager is usually at the top left side of the template with a single leading row. All workers are subject to when every row collides with every column. The row can manifest into the worker assembly that will function separately and single project manager will lead them.

Obviously, with such a structure, some tension is present between project managers and each functional manager. They share workers, and because each of them has a different job to do, their interests conflict.

There are numerous varying types of matrix organizations, but they all have the common goal of trying to create each manager's specific functional needs with a balance of power.

Daiv Russell is a management and marketing consultant with Envision Consulting in Tampa, Florida. Learn more about matrix management structure at project-management-course.info. Choose the right Project Management Software and improve your Gantt Charts

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