Prior to the 1970s large corporations followed a silo organization structure. Worker groups fell under a line or functional manager. Companies are now attempting to restructure and develop working project management teams. This is called a matrix organization.

There are a number of matrix organizations that exist today. Each of them has the goal to create balance between power for each manager's particular needs and functionality. The primary focus being on: The Weak Matrix, Strong Matrix, and Balanced Matrix organizational structure. This article will better dissect the benefits as well as drawbacks of the weak organization structure.

Weak Matrix Organizational Structure

Matrix organizations can be challenging for project managers, since they must work closely with functional managers and workers to complete the projects under their direction. This is due to the absence of actual authority over the workers under their supervision and thus the need to work out differences in objectives and priorities with the functional managers.

Employees in this organization are not attached to temporary management staff, or to temporary projects, because it is another manager entirely who is responsible for promotions. These "functional managers" and the work they assign becomes the primary goal of employees, and any other projects and managers take a back seat. This means that the project manager has to combat strong apathy from his workers in order to be successful.

What is even more problematic is that a project manager has no real authority over team members, and so can only discuss members' performance problems with the functional manager. The project manager reports these issues, often without resolution, hoping that functional managers will induce a worker to concentrate his or her efforts upon the 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 management and marketing consultant with Envision Consulting in Tampa, Florida. Get more information on matrix structure at project-management-course.info. Choose the right Project Management Software and optimize your Gantt Chart Use

Article Source: http://www.articleset.com