Exam 13: Project Management Organisational Structures

In , projects are continually being completed and started.

In , individuals can pursue career development through assignment to various types of projects.As they broaden their experience, individuals become more valuable for future assignments.

A disadvantage of an autonomous project organisational structure is that when things are slow, individuals have a tendency to stretch out their work to fill up the time available or if they do not have any tasks to do for temporary periods, their unapplied time is still a cost to the company.

A disadvantage of an autonomous project organisational structure is that it can be cost-inefficient because of underutilisation of resources.

In , knowledge stays with the company, ready to be used on future projects.

provides for effective utilisation of company resources.

A disadvantage of a matrix organisational structure is that conflicts will arise between project managers and functional managers regarding priorities.

In , multiple projects are worked on at any one time, and these projects vary in size and complexity.

can help to resolve priority conflicts between projects and can facilitate decisions regarding the priority among projects.

A disadvantage of a functional organisational structure is that decisions may be parochial rather than in the best interests of the overall project.

In , the project manager is the intermediary between the company and the customer.

In , the project manager does not have complete authority over the project team, because administratively the members still work for their respective functional managers.

provides checks and balances and a fast response upon problem identification because it has both a horizontal (project) and a vertical (functional) path for the flow of information.

is kind of a hybrid; a mix of both the functional and autonomous project organisational structures.

Companies with are in the projects business; they do not produce standard products.

plays an important role in the matrix organisational structure because it oversees and coordinates multiple projects.

may also provide project management training, provide administrative support staff for projects, establish consistent procedures, and develop best practices and templates for planning, monitoring, and controlling projects.

In , there is little opportunity for members of different project teams to share knowledge or technical expertise, because each project team tends to be isolated.

In , each member of a project team has a dual reporting relationship; in a sense, each member has two managers, a (temporary) project manager and a (permanent) functional manager.

is customer focused.