Chapter 3, Problem 1RQ

What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of the functional, matrix, and dedicated team approaches to managing projects?

Summary Introduction

To determine:

The benefits gained, and the difficulties faced in the management of projects through the functional, matrix and dedicated team approaches.

Introduction:

Project management is a process in which projects are initiated, planned, organized, controlled and completed with limited resources and in given time period. Projects are basically temporary in nature and are usually aligned with the organizational goal.

Explanation of Solution

The advantages of functional approach to managing project are:

• Functional approach in project management uses different departments in an organization.
• It makes use of different people withinthe organization who are expertized in their own functions.
• Moreover, as project can be temporary in nature, there are no radical changes done in organization for the project.
• Employees are motivated for doing project that leads to better output and productivity.
• Employees can easily be transitioned to their department once the project is over. This also leads to better resource allocation.

The disadvantages of functional approach to managing project are:

• The people are less focused as each functional unit needs to complete their core routine of work.
• The integration among the functional specialist will be poor as they are more concerned about respective department.
• The time to complete the project will be more.
• The people will be less motivated as they have additional burden of completing the project.

Dedicated project team refers to the teams who operate as a separate unit from the rest of the organization and focus only on projects.The advantages of organization team are:

• The structure is simple as there are teams who are formed just to focus on the project.
• The project gets completed fast as the participants devote their time completely on the project.
• The team works collaboratively with their time completely dedicated on projects.
• Cross-functional integration results in optimizing the project as experts from different area work closely.

The disadvantages of organizing projects as dedicated team are:

• The dedicated teams are expensive as the team require a project manager and the team needs to work on full-time basis.
• There is a possibility of conflict situation between the project team and the rest of the organization.
• The dedicated team may lack technological expertise.
• Post-project transition is difficult to decide what needs to be done to the personnel once the project gets completed.

Matrix organization is a type of method of project management in which characteristics of both functional and project team method are used. Under this method, employees from different departments are assigned multi-tasks which enables them to showcase their work in different departments.The advantages of organizing projects within matrix arrangement are:

• Effective usage of resources across different functions.
• High motivation in employees due to multiple roles and showcasing their skills in different field.
• Improved and prompt decision making take place.
• The team can focus strongly on the project as the project manager would be responsible for contributing and integrating contributions of different units.

The disadvantages of organizing projects within a matrix team are:

• This can give rise to non-functional conflict arising between the functional managers and project managers.
• Increase in competition and conflict for scarce resources as resources are shared across projects and functional activities.
• This results in an increase in internal complexity.