Proj Mgmt 586

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Huntsville Plant Organizational Structure |

Project Management 586 |

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Erika Moore |

10/20/2013 |

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First things first, what is an organizational structure? According to businessdictionary.com, “an organizational structure determines how the roles, power, and responsibilities are assigned, controlled, and coordinated, and how information flows between the different levels of management.” Now that we know exactly what an organizational structure is, we can move on to the types of structures. According to Gido (2015), there are three commonly used structures. They are: functional, autonomous project, and matrix (p. 430).

A functional organizational structure is an organizational structure in which individuals are organized in groups that perform the same function or have the same expertise or skills. An autonomous structure also known as a projectized structure is an organizational structure in which each project operates as its own somewhat independent entity with dedicated resources assigned solely to each project. Lastly, a matrix structure is a hybrid of the functional and autonomous project organizational structures, in which resources from appropriate functional components of an organization are temporarily assigned to particular projects that have project managers from the project component of the organization (Gido, p. 486).

The Huntsville Plant’s operating structure is a Matrix because the team consists of individuals representing several departments within the Seitz Corporation. Upon completion of the project, the team members will return to their daily duties within the company.

There are several advantages when operating under a matrix structure. For example, the project manager can analyze the technical expertise that each of his team members brings to the project and assign the members to a specific task that needs completing based on said expertise. The project manager may also share resources between team members....