Project Management Organization: Forms and Leadership
Project Management Organization (15 Points)
1.1. Three Essential Organizational Forms of Project Management
Staff Project Organization
This form is best suited for smaller projects with lower risks and less stringent time constraints. It is particularly useful when top management desires significant involvement and influence over project details.
Matrix Project Organization
This form is effective when managing numerous simultaneous projects involving multiple company departments working on similar topics.
Pure Project Management
This form is ideal for complex, novel, and strategically important tasks with high risk and tight deadlines.
1.2. Matching Projects to Organizational Forms (9 Points)
a) Conversion of End Assembly for Buses in a Known Commercial Vehicle Plant in Braunschweig/Salzgitter (Estimated Duration: 18 Months)
Recommended Organization Form: Matrix Project Organization.
Reasoning: This project involves multiple departments working concurrently. As the bus model is known, top management influence is less critical, and the risk is relatively low, as departments are familiar with their respective tasks.
b) Implementation of a New Inventory Recording IT System for a High-Rack Warehouse in a Production Company (Estimated Duration: 6 Months)
Recommended Organization Form: Staff Project Organization.
Reasoning: This project primarily involves a specific part of the company. Given that the system is new, management involvement is advisable.
c) Construction of a 600 MW Coal-Fired Power Plant for a Major City (Estimated Duration: 48 Months)
Recommended Organization Form: Pure Project Management.
Reasoning: This is a completely new project requiring significant top management impact due to time constraints and high risk. The project faces political considerations, a tight schedule, and inherent construction risks.
1. Project Organization (10 Points)
Explain the three generic forms of project organization, including the advantages and disadvantages of each.
- Staff Project Management
Advantages:
- Simple implementation
- Flexible manpower
- Staff acts as an intermediary
- High acceptance
- Relatively good use of manpower
Disadvantages:
- Problems with personal acquisition of responsibilities and authority
- Lack of identification with the project
- Prolonged reaction time
- Tensions within the staff line
- Matrix Project Management
Advantages:
- Flexible integration of project staff
- Increased responsibility
- Targeted transfer of specialized tasks
- Professional responsibility of the project manager
Disadvantages:
- Problematic delimitation
- Conflicts due to dual reporting lines (line and project)
- Overly precise documentation
- Passing the buck
- Pure Project Management
Advantages:
- Tight project management
- Clear, unambiguous project responsibility
- Unity of order receipt (task and competence)
- High motivation and identification
- Employer in business
Disadvantages:
- Rigid organization
- High overhead expenses
- Difficult reintegration of employees after the project
- Integration of project results
Characteristics
- Staff Project Management
- Small project
- Low risk
- Non-time critical
- Low complexity
- Matrix Project Management
- High number of ongoing projects
- Strong interdepartmental projects
- Relatively similar projects
- Pure Project Management
- Complex project
- New type of tasks
- Strategic importance
- High risk and time pressure
2. Project Leader (15 Points)
2.1. Four Key Personal and Professional Requirements for a Successful Project Leader (5 Points)
- Personal Qualification
Includes team spirit, creativity, decision-making skills, initiative, interpersonal skills…
- Project Qualification
Including knowledge and experience related to the organization of methods and techniques, which requires proper experience working on projects.
- System Qualification
Includes all the knowledge and experiences that relate the project and the system, so this system can be designed. Must have a complete overview of the project through knowledge of the system.
- Management Style
The project manager determines the style of leadership based on their personality, which should be mostly cooperative, promoting initiative and motivation.
2.2. Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid and the Shifting Leadership Focus Over a Project’s Timeline (10 Points)
The model is represented as a grid with concern for production as the x-axis and concern for people as the y-axis; each axis ranges from 1 (Low) to 9 (High). The resulting leadership styles are as follows:
- The indifferent style (1,1): Evade and elude. In this style, managers have low concern for both people and production, preserve job and job seniority, avoiding getting into trouble. The main concern for the manager is not to be held responsible for any mistakes, which results in less innovative decisions.
- The accommodating style (1,9): Yield and comply. High concern for people and a low concern for production. They pay much attention to the security and comfort of the employees, in hopes that this will increase performance. The resulting atmosphere is usually friendly, but not necessarily very productive.
- The dictatorial style (9,1): Control and dominate. With a high concern for production and a low concern for people, managers using this style find employee needs unimportant; they provide their employees with money and expect performance in return. Managers using this style also pressure their employees through rules and punishments to achieve the company goals. This dictatorial style is commonly applied by companies on the edge of real or perceived failure. This style is often used in cases of crisis management.
- The status quo style (5,5): Balance and compromise. Managers using this style try to balance between company goals and workers’ needs. By giving some concern to both people and production, managers who use this style hope to achieve suitable performance, but doing so gives away a bit of each concern so that neither production nor people needs are met.
- The sound (9,9): Contribute and commit. In this style, high concern is paid both to people and production. This method relies heavily on making employees feel themselves to be constructive parts of the company.