Stan Portny identifies key people in project-oriented organizations and how to define roles and maintain supportive team environments. He describes functional, projectized, and matrix organization structures and their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, he offers approaches for starting a project successfully, including finalizing team member roles and assignments, setting operating procedures, and planning project controls and a post-project review.

1. In this part, Stan Portny identifies the people who affect the
work environment in a project-oriented organization. He also
suggests ways to define team member roles, and He offers
approaches that encourage team members to maintain a
supportive environment. Finally, He describes how to start
your project off on the right foot.

2.  The functional organization structure (see Figure
9-1 for an example) brings together people who
perform similar tasks or who use the same kinds of
skills and knowledge in functional groups.

3.  Advantages
 Functional groups are reservoirs of skills and knowledge in their areas of
expertise.
 Functional groups’ well-established communication processes and decision-
making procedures provide timely and consistent support for the group’s
projects.
 Functional groups provide people with a focused and supportive job
environment.
 Disadvantages
 The functional structure hampers effective collaboration between different
functional groups.
 The functional group members’ main interest is to perform the tasks in their
group’s specialty area effectively, rather than to achieve goals and results
that may involve and affect other groups in the organization.
 A functional group may have difficulty getting buy in and support for its
project from other functional groups that must support or will be affected by
the project.

4.  The projectized organization structure groups together all personnel working
on a particular project. Project team members are often located together and
under the direct authority of the project manager for the duration of the
project. As an example, you see in Figure 9-2 that a design engineer, an IT
specialist, and a test engineer all work on Project A, while a different design
engineer and a different test engineer work on Project B.

5.  Advantages
 All members of a project team report directly to the project
manager.
 Project team members can more easily develop a shared
sense of identity, resulting in a stronger commitment to one
another and to the success of the project.
 Everyone on the team shares the processes for performing
project work, communication, conflict resolution, and decision
making.
 Disadvantages
 Higher personnel costs.
 Reduced technical interchange between projects.
 Reduced career continuity, opportunities, and sense of job
security.

6.  With increasing frequency, projects today involve and affect many
functional areas within an organization. As a result, personnel from
these different areas must work together to successfully accomplish
the project work. The matrix organization structure combines
elements of both the functional and projectized structures to facilitate
the responsive and effective participation of people from different
parts of the organization on projects that need their specialized
expertise.

7.  Advantages
 Teams can assemble rapidly.
 Specialized expertise can be available for several
different projects.
 Getting buy in from team members’ functional units is
easier with the matrix structure than with the functional
or projectized structures.
 Disadvantages
 Team members working on multiple projects respond
to two or more managers.
 Team members may not be familiar with on another’s
styles and knowledge.
 Team members may focus more on their individual
assignments and less on the project and its goals.

8.  Your project team typically includes people with different skill
sets and operating styles who work in different parts of the
organization. Thus, you may not have worked extensively with
your team members before. In addition, your project usually
has a tight time schedule, and team members most likely are
working on several other assignments at the same time.
 Success in this kind of environment requires that you and your
team members agree on how to work with each other to
maximize contributions and minimize wasted time and
mistakes. The team needs an approach that gives everyone
confidence that members will live up to their commitments.
The project manager and every team member must
understand and be comfortable with their planned roles.

9. ▶ Characterizing authority, responsibility,
and accountability
▶ Delegating assignments the right way
▶ Developing and using a Responsibility
Assignment Matrix
▶ Handling micromanagement effectively

10.  Starting off your project correctly is a key to ultimate success. Your
project plan describes what you’ll produce, the work you’ll do, how
you’ll do it, when you’ll do it, and which resources you’ll need to do it.
When you write your project plan, you base it on the information you
have at the time, and, if information isn’t available, you make
assumptions. The more time between your plan’s completion and its
approval, the more changes you’re likely to find in your plan’s
assumptions as you actually start your project.
 As you prepare to start your project, you need to reconfirm or update
the information in your plan, determine or reaffirm which people will
play roles in your project and exactly what those roles will be, and
prepare the systems and procedures that will support your project’s
performance. This chapter tells you how to accomplish these tasks
and get your project off to a strong start.

11. Making final touches on team member
assignments
Developing your team’s operating
procedures and more
Setting up systems and schedules for
project control
Making your project official with an
announcement
Planning the post-project review