Exam 13: Project Management Organizational Structures

As projects wind down and are completed in , the company hopes to get contracts for new projects.

provides the benefits associated with specialization and functional excellence.

A company with may periodically undertake projects, but these are typically in-house projects rather than projects for external customers.For such projects, a multifunctional project team or task force is formed.

In , people experience greater learning and growth, and their knowledge and skills are transferred from project to project.

In , a full-time project manager has complete project and administrative authority over the project team.

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 provides the project and customer focus of the project structure, but it retains the functional expertise of the functional structure.

reduces duplication and overlap of activities.

In , project team members can inform the project manager and the functional manager.

Individuals are assigned to the project for the length of time they are needed in .

is kind of a hybrid, a mix of both the functional and autonomous project organizational structures.

A disadvantage of an autonomous project organizational structure is that there is a high level of knowledge transfer among projects.

allows efficient utilization of resources by having individuals from various functions assigned to work on specific projects.

In , in most cases if an individual serves part-time on a project task force, the individual continues to perform her regular functional jobs.

In , the project team has full control over the resources, including authority over how the work gets done and by whom.

A disadvantage of an autonomous project organizational structure is that at the end of a project, people may be laid off if there is not a new project to which they can be assigned leading to team members experiencing high anxiety about reassignment.

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

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

In , one of the team members is designated as the project leader or manager.

A disadvantage of a functional organizational structure is that the hierarchical structure causes communication, problem resolution, and decision making to be fast and efficient.