Project Organisations Project Organisation and Responsibilities Organisational Models Choosing the Project Organisation

1. Project Organizations
Prepared by
Hassanein Alwan Malik
University ofTechnology, Iraq
Chapter 3
Project Management
Olaf Passenheim

2. Project Organization and Responsibilities
In Project Management, the structural organization has to fulfil
two tasks:
• Definition, how a project organization is embedded within the parent
organization (organizational models, see discussion below).
• Definition, how the organization is structured internally within the project
team.

4. • project sponsor is the manager or executive within an organization who
is not directly involved in the operational work of the project but who can
oversee a project, delegate authority to the Project Manager and can
provide support as a trainer or coach to the Project Manager
• steering committee is a group of senior managers responsible for
business issues affecting the project.They usually have budget approval
authority
• advisory committee is a group of people that represents key project
stakeholders and provides advice to the project. Like steering committees,
advisory committees are generally recruited from senior management.

5. • project manager is naturally the key person within the project
organization and has the overall responsibility
• - Supervision and guidance to the project team
• - Regular (weekly or monthly) project status reports to the project sponsor/
steering committee
• - Attend steering committee meetings and prepare supporting materials
with the project sponsor
• - Execute project management processes: risk, issues, change, quality, and
document management
• - Ensure project plan, schedule and budget are up-to-date; detect and
manage variances

6. • team leader is a person responsible for managing one part of a project, or a
“subproject.”This position only exists on larger projects where subprojects
• team member is a person assigned to a team who is responsible for
performing a clearly defined part of the project activities

7. Organizational Models
There are two fundamentally different ways of organizing projects within the
parent organization:
• The project as part of the functional organisation or pure line organisation
• The project as a free-standing part of the parent organisation (project
organisation)
• A third type, called a matrix organisation, is a hybrid of the two main types

8. The pure line organization or functional organization does not have a specific position for
project managers. Project managers are specialist or line managers who are aligned to the
project for a specific time.

9. The advantages are:
• Reduced overhead, as no additional project team members have
to be hired
• Provides clearly marked career paths for hiring and promotion
• Employees work alongside colleagues who share similar
interests, therefore the expertise of the team members stays
within their departments
• No structural change for running the project required
• Flexibility for changes in the project scope
• Easy post-project transition as the project team members simply
continue doing their line job again

10. The disadvantages are:
• - Co-ordination of functional tasks is difficult as little reward for
co-operation with other
• Provides scope for different department heads to pass off
company project failures as being due to the failures of other
departments
• -Slow reaction time due to long communication lines within the
project

11. Within the pure project organization the project manager
is fully responsible for a group of specialists,

12. The advantages are:
• - Simple and fast, as the project manager has full line authority over the
project and all members of the project team are reporting directly to the
project manager
• -The lines of communication are shortened; the ability to make a swift
decision is enhanced
• - A cross-functional integration is supported as a pure project organisation
can maintain a permanent cadre of experts who develop skills in specific
technologies
• - A project team that has a strong and separate identity and develops a high
level of commitment from its members
• -The organizational structure tends to support a all approach to the project

13. The disadvantages are:
• - Each project has to be fully staffed which can lead to a
duplication of staff numbers
• - Project managers tend to stockpile equipment and technical
assistance as this represents the importance of their project
within the organisation

14. The matrix organizationThis structure allows for
participation on multiple projects while performing
normal functional duties

15. The advantages are:
• -The advantages of both structure are retained
• - Resources can be co-ordinated in a way that applies them effectively to
different projects
• -Team Members can maintain contact with project teams as well as with
their functional department colleagues,
• -The project team will be more flexible and able to view problems in a
different way as specialists have been brought together in a new
environment.
• - Project managers are directly responsible for completing the project by a
specific deadline and budget.
• -Team members can return to their old line responsibility after finishing the
project

16. The disadvantages are:
• - Potential for conflict between functional vs. project groups due to unclear
responsibilities
• - A conflict of loyalty between line managers and project managers over the
allocation of resources
• - Costs can be increased if more (project) managers are created through the
use of project teams
• -The division of authority and responsibility in a matrix organization is
complex
• - Project workers have at least two bosses,

17. Choosing the Project Organization
Step 1: Definition of the project,
• - Size of project
• - Strategic importance, how important is the project to the firm’s success?
• - Integration requirements (departments involved)
• - Complexity (number of external interfaces)
• - Budget and time constraints
• -What level of resources (human and physical) is available?
• - Stability of resource requirements

18. • Step 2: Determination of the key tasks which are linked with every sub-goal
or objective and identification of the specialist
• Step 3: Breaking down the project into tasks and determining which
organizational units are required to carry out the work packages and which
units will work particularly closely with which others
• Step 4: List of any special characteristic or hampering factor associated with
the project.
• Step 5:With the findings gained from steps 1- 4 and the knowledge of all
advantages and disadvantages choice of structural organization form.