2.08 - Organisation Structure
Features of Traditional Functional Management
- No overall ownership of the project as an integrated set of activities or work packages
- Fragmentation of activities into specialist groupings
- Long lead-times due to activities taking place as work moves between departments
Features of Project Management
- Ownership of the project by a dedicated multi-discipline team
- Integration of supporting functions, for example, Product Engineering and Manufacturing Systems Engineering
- Short-times due to parallel and interactive work on all activities
A combination of Project and Functional management is required to suit the project mix in a particular Business or Product Unit with clear ownership of the projects and the associated work packages – particularly where work-packages are sub-contracted internally or externally.
Project Scale Categorisation
Classification |
Description |
|
Leadership |
Runners |
Narrowly focussed projects lying within specialist functions |
→ |
Functional Manager or subordinate |
Repeaters |
Crosses a few functions only |
→ |
Lead function that owns & manages it. |
Strangers |
Big new projects requiring a mix of all functional skills,
e. g. product introduction or Business change project |
→ |
Project Manager in Matrix style |
Organization to Support Project Management
Important Elements
- The Head of Projects has a nucleus of permanent staff of Project Managers, Technical Managers and Engineers who can be rotated between projects, depending on the size of organisation.
- Additional people are allocated from the support functions by the Resource Allocations Committee.
- A budget is required for each project set against each stage of project attainment. See section 6.00 for New Product Introduction (NPI) process.
- Each large project has its own:
- Commercial / Finance Administrator
- Planning Manager, with functional link to Company Programme (or Timing) Manager*
- Clerical Staff
- Engineering Change Board
- Quality and Reliability team
A programme manager is required in a large organisation to:
- Audit progress of all significant projects.
- Operate a problem and risk escalation procedure.
- Maintain a clear view across all projects for a particular customer.
- Ensure consistent application of best practice.
- Assist with initial project planning and resourcing at project initiation and start-up to ensure uniform application of best practice.
Key Requisites for the successful introduction of Project Management
- Training of core manager groups for each project team
- The project Manager must own the budget – functional heads therefore have to “sell” their resources to him in order to support their departments via work package contracts.
- Divide projects into “Runner, Repeater and Stranger” categories and make functional heads the owner for the first two.
- Operate job rotation, that is, now and again make a functional head the Project Manager for a big new “Stranger” type project.
- Re-integrate some of the specialist fragmented functions into broader based functional units and provide multi-skill experience and training.
They protect standards and are responsible for specialist training.
Warning! - There is a HIGH RISK of FAILURE if any of these items are missed.