Matrix Organization:
- The organizational structure in which people with similar skills are pooled for work assignments, resulting in more than one manager is called a matrix organization.
- Matrix organization is a combination of work based (functional organization) and project based organization.
- Matrix management is the practice of managing individuals with more than one reporting line i.e. in a matrix organization structure.
- For example, all engineers may be in one engineering department and report to an engineering manager (i.e. part of functional organization structure), but these same engineers may be assigned to different projects and report to a different engineering manager or a project manager while working on that project. Therefore, each engineer may have to work under several managers at same point of time.
Design of matrix organization:
- In matrix organization we find the combination of work based and project based organization.
In this type of organization, several project managers are appointed for various projects and each project manager is given different type of work responsibilities.
- The responsibility of the project manager is to successfully complete the project assigned to him that too on time.
- For each project, a pool of employees is made from different areas of the company. Each of these employees holds some specific skill which is needed by the project.
Example:
- An IT company has a typical functional organization structure. So, it has various departments such as Research Department, Programming Department, Marketing, Accounts, etc.
- The company takes various projects from its clients. Let us say a project from Vodafone, Torrent Power, etc.
- For Vodafone project, the company may form a team of a computer expert,
Matrix Organization
research expert, production engineer, technical expert and an accounts expert for executing the project. All these experts already work in specific departments of the company and report to their own bosses. But, under the Vodafone project they will also report to their new temporary manager who is handling the Vodafone Project.
The authority of the functional managers goes downwards (vertical) whereas that of project managers goes sideways i.e. horizontal and so the structure of the organization takes a matrix design.
Once when the work is done, they are sent to their respective work areas / to which they belonged.
