Question

Your company is ready to overhaul its project management practices and top management is convinced that it will benefit from adopting PMI standards in organizing and managing its projects and is encouraging all of its employees (including you and especially members of project teams) to become familiar with the five PMI standard project management process groups and how they relate to each other.        

• Which of the process group is the most important one and why is it the most important?
• What are some of the differences between project-oriented and functional organizational structures in terms of their effects on project management?
• Do you think that functional organization structure will be better than project-oriented organizations structure for some projects? Why or why not?

Answer 1

A companys organizational structure can influence the project management process.A companys organizational structure can dictate the level of project management who makes the ultimate project decisions ,the communication of project goals the tasks and hoe the project management works.

1.Functional organization structure:employees are not as per project.Employees always enganged in day to day activities.Resource utilization close to optimum.

2.Projectized:Employees are as per the project.Long bench periods if no project in pipeline.Resources can be optimized and better control over project.

3.MAtrix(Combination of both projectized and functional):

1.weak matix:PM(Project Manager) has limited authority..No reporting to the PM.PM role like a project co-ordinator.FM(Functional Manager control the project)

2.strong Matrix:PM has authority and full control over the project.FM has minimal role.

3.Balanced Matrix:PM and FM share responsibility both control budget.

The length of the projects is an vital term that decides which kind of organization would be more effective.For a long duration project

a projectized organization would be a better suit as the employee utilization could be controlled in this case at the same time budget will be controlled and the PM will have the total authority over the project.

whereas for a short duration project the functional organization is a better suit.In this case the FM has a total control over the project and is a decision maker in employee engangement.

hope it helps

regards.