Project Organisation

This blog examines three different ways of organising projects in a company.

Figure 1:

A Compliance department completing a compliance project is a functional project

The Functional Organisation

This is when the project is part of the functional organisations, such as a compliance project being completed by the compliance department.

The project is positioned in the part of the organisation where it is most relevant and which stands to benefit the most from the project. This also makes the best use out of the skills and experience of the staff in that department. An example is a compliance department running a project to implement a new regulation.

Figure 2: Building a hotel where every is working full time on the project is an example of a pure project organisation

The Pure Project Organisation

This is when the project is run as a free-standing, independent team in the company. A project manager will run the project and hire other people with various skills for the duration of the project. It is suitable for larger projects as people working on the project full-time job. An example of this would be a construction project of building a hotel and everyone is working full time on the project.

Figure 3:

The Matrix Organisation

This is when full-time employees will be working on multiple small projects on a part-time basis at the same time. The full-time employees report primarily through their functional line. Eg, an engineer will spend 5% of their time on the project and report to the project manager when working on the project, but still reports to the Chief Engineer on day-to-day matters.

Assembling the Project Team

When assembling a project team, a ‘work breakdown structure’ is prepared to determine the exact nature of the tasks required to complete the project. The project manager can then assess what people are likely to be needed to carry out the work. For instance, if there is a lot of legal work in the pipeline, lawyers will need to be on the project.

Once this forecast is completed, it can also then be determined if individuals can be located from the already existing functional departments within the company or if certain tasks will need to be subcontracted out.

When organising a project, a project manager may struggle for resources and time from the company. If the Project Manager is to be accountable for a project then she also has to be given the authority to control the resources needed to complete the project.