Exploring Project Management Structures: Insights and Implications

A. Introduction

The scope of this report is to provide project managers with valuable insights on the author’s own philosophical view on project management, focusing on the organization’s internal & external environment and circumstances affecting the project’s success eg. The project management structure, forming virtual teams, and the organization’s stakeholders etc. Laufer et al. (2015) had also emphasized the importance of long-term planning in dealing with these unforeseen events, which raises the point that project managers must be well-equipped with the proper knowledge and tools to appropriately handle such situations. The success of a project is undeniably crucial to an organization because businesses would be able to meet the customers’

As such, it is essential for project managers to have a good understanding on the pros and cons of different project management structure so as to advantageously utilize them in the completion of projects. (Larson and Gray, 2014) There are 3 common project management models that firms would come across below.

B.1.a Functional Organization

Figure 1: Functional Model

This model echoes the existing hierarchy of the firm, whereby the project manager would seek the functional manager of each department to recruit manpower and expertise required for the project. Notable advantages are: greater flexibility and expertise (Larson and Gray, 2014) as project managers can pool together members with the necessary expertise necessary to fulfill the project requirements. After the project ends, members can resume their original jobs or be assigned to new projects easily.

However, such structure suffers from slow and indirect communication among functional members, causing delays in project duration. Additionally, project members generally lack focus and coordination (Bobera, 2008) as they are only pulled together temporarily for a project. In actual fact, they have other commitments to attend to aside from the project.

B.1.b Dedicated Project

This results in higher efficiency as members only have to answer to the project manager, allowing communication and information to be disseminated quickly.

However, the firm is expected to deal with the possibility of internal conflict arising among competing project teams (Larson and Gray, 2014) It is also expensive to maintain as idle costs may incur when there are no projects underway. Moreover, they might become too attached to their original team that they have difficulty adjusting to their next role during the post-project transition phase.

B.1.c Matrix Structure

This model adopts extremities from both the functional and project-based management style, whereby the aim is to achieve a fine balance between project transitioning (flexibility) and integration (efficiency).

Figure 3: Matrix model

However, it is also accompanied by disadvantages. For example, having many managements to be accounted to (project and functional managers) whom might have conflicting views concerning the project. Furthermore, it is difficult to co-ordinate the schedules and manpower with such a complex project structure. The end result would typically be a slow decision-making process. (Harrison and St. John,