Manage projects in matrix organizations

- We tend to think of companies as a pyramid. There's someone at the top with a few people reporting to her. Each of those folks is responsible for some kind of business function like operations or finance or IT. And then those folks have people reporting to them who work in those functions. That's called a functional hierarchy and it's the way that most businesses were organized, up until a few years ago. But that approach is slow and rigid, because those functions become communication silos, and that makes it hard for people to communicate across the functions. So now, businesses are moving towards matrix structures. In a matrix organization, people can work in one function but get assigned to projects in other parts of the company. In other words, they can have multiple bosses. Those matrix structures can be complicated, but they're really useful when you're working on cross-functional projects. For example, you can build a single project team with members from IT and finance and operations. That can radically improve communications and collaboration within a company because it creates connections directly between the people and the functions that need to be involved in getting something done. There are three different kinds of matrix organizations. In a weak matrix, when someone is assigned to a project, their functional boss is still in charge of important things like performance reviews and promotion opportunities. In a strong matrix, they're still part of a functional group but those important decisions like performance reviews and promotions are made by the project manager that they're working for. And in a balanced matrix, those decisions are shared equally by the functional manager and the project manager. Each kind of matrix has pros and cons. A weak matrix is often better for projects that are small or short and a strong matrix may be better for larger, longer term initiatives. The key thing to understand is that the matrix structure has a big impact on a person's motivation and their feelings about being part of a project team. By understanding the type of matrix you work in, you can do a better job of helping your team with the challenges that come from having two or more bosses at the same time.