Project Management: Organizational Structures, Roles, and Responsibilities
Project-Based Organizations
In project-based organizations, individuals are assigned to projects, each with a specific problem to solve within time and budget constraints.
Key Properties of Project-Based Organizations
- Teams are assembled for a project as it is created.
- Each project has a project leader.
- All participants are involved in the complete project.
- Teams are disassembled when the project terminates.
Advantages
- Highly responsive to new requirements.
- New personnel can be hired with specific problem knowledge or capabilities.
- No waste of staff workload.
Disadvantages
- Teams cannot be assembled rapidly. Staffing and hiring processes can be challenging.
- Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined at the project’s outset due to the absence of predefined lines.
Matrix Organizations
In matrix organizations, individuals from different departments of a functional organization are assigned to work on one or more projects. Project managers and participants are typically assigned to a project for less than 100% of their time.
Advantages
- Teams for projects can be assembled rapidly.
- Rare expertise can be applied to different projects as needed.
- Consistent reporting and decision procedures can be used for projects of the same type.
Disadvantages
- Team members may not be familiar with each other.
- Team members may have different working styles.
- Team members must adjust to working with each other.
Challenges in Matrix Organizations
Team members working on multiple projects have competing demands for their time.
Team members must respond to two different bosses with different focuses:
- Focus of the functional manager: Assignments to different projects, performance appraisal
- Focus of the project manager: Work assignments to project members, support of the project team
Multiple work procedures and reporting systems are used by different team members.
Binding Roles to People
A role is a set of commitments to achieve specific results. A role is instantiated during a project and assigned to one or more participants.
Key Concepts
- Responsibility: The commitment to achieve specific results.
- Delegation: Rebinding a responsibility assigned to one person (including yourself) to another person.
- Authority: The ability to make binding decisions between roles and people.
- Accountability: Tracking task performance to a person.
Types of Binding Roles
- One-to-One: Ideal but often not practical for projects.
- Many-to-Few: Each project member assumes several roles.
- Many-to-Too-Many: Some people don’t have significant roles (bystanders).
Delegation
Delegation is the assignment of authority and responsibility to another person.
Reasons for Delegation
- Time Management: Freeing up time for other tasks.
- Expertise: Selecting a more qualified person for decision-making.
- Training: Developing another person’s ability to handle additional assignments.
Risks of Delegation
- Over-commitment: The responsible person may have too many roles and responsibilities.
- Loss of Responsibility: The project manager may no longer have any responsibilities.
- Additional Approvals: The outcome may require additional approvals, potentially delaying the project.
Responsibilities of the Project Manager
- Determine objectives, schedule, and resources.
- Design a software project management plan.
- Create and sustain focused and motivated teams.
- Determine the team’s work procedures, reporting systems, and communication infrastructure.
- Accomplish project objectives within time and budget.
- Monitor performance against the plan.
- Resolve technical and interpersonal conflicts.
- Control changes in the project.
- Report on project activities to upper management.
- Keep the client informed and committed.
- Contribute to the team members’ performance approval.
Taxonomy for Project Roles
- Management Role: Organization and execution of the project within constraints (e.g., project manager, team leader).
- Development Role: Specification, design, and construction of subsystems (e.g., analyst, software architect, programmer).
- Cross-Functional Role: Execution of project functions (e.g., API Liaison, configuration manager).
- Consultant Role: Support in areas where project participants lack expertise (e.g., end user, client, application domain specialist, technical consultant).
- Promoter Role: Deals with change in organization, application/solution domain, software process.
Hierarchical Project Organization
Key Properties:
- Tree structure organization.
- Decisions are made at the root and communicated to the leaf nodes.
Advantages:
- Centralized control over project selection.
- One set of management and reporting procedures for all project participants across all projects.
- Established working relationships among people.
- Clearly established lines of authority to set priorities and resolve conflicts.
- Authority to pressure people to honor their action items.
- Clearly defined career path.
Disadvantages:
- Slow response time.
- Evaluating and approving change requests takes too long due to long reporting/decision lines.
- Difficulty managing the workload of people.
- People may not be required for all projects.
- Problems with application or solution domain.
- People may have limited experience outside their field of expertise.
Nonhierarchical Project Organization
Key Properties:
- General graph structure organization.
- Different edges for decision, reporting, and communication flows.
- Decisions can be made at various nodes in the graph.
Advantages:
- Cuts down on bureaucracy.
- Reduces development time.
- Decisions are expected to be made at each level.
Disadvantages:
- Hard to manage.
Micromanagement
Micromanagement is the excessive involvement of a person in the details of a task assigned to another person.
Reasons for Micromanagement
- The manager is interested in the work and enjoys it.
- The manager is a technical expert who feels best fitted for the job.
- The manager feels the assignment was not explained clearly.
- The manager is looking for a way to stay involved with the person or the team.
- The manager feels threatened because the managed person has more technical knowledge.
- The manager does not have a clear understanding of how to spend project time.
- The manager wants to stay up-to-date in case somebody else asks about the work.
Overcoming Micromanagement
- Don’t be defensive when the manager asks questions.
- Thank the micromanager for their interest and time.
- Complaining about micromanagement will cause the micromanager to do it even more.
- Offer to explain to the micromanager how you will approach your tasks.
- Work out a scheme for sharing progress and accomplishments.