Prior to the 1970s, large business organizations functioned in "silos." These were groups of workers who functioned in isolated groups and were subordinate to line or functional managers. Picture several columns on a page. Each column is headed by a line manager, and each line manager supervises one worker group. Because these groups functioned with autonomy, some work functions were replicated by each silo.
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 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's worse, since the project manager has no actual authority on the project, the only thing truly in his power in the case of a failing project is to report the negative results to a functional manager. The project manager hopes that the functional manager will straighten out and refocus the employees on the project, but this doesn't always happen.
However, don't forget, functional managers must aspire to the responsibility for overseeing work performance in his/her functional area. So that the workers engaged in the current project's tasks don't decrease the productivity of the functional unit as a whole. A result this significantly occurs between functional managers, project managers, and individual workers.
This kind of matrix organization is known for leaving project managers with little power in most situations.
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