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The MOBA Project Management - Part 18

Structures and communication channels

Line organization

In a line organization the hierarchical arrangement is linear, i.e. each employee (EE) receives his instructions from a clearly defined superior. The top level of this line organization is usually the corporate management. Here strategic decisions are made. The next level is divided into departments, e.g. logistics, purchasing, stock, sales, development, product management, marketing, etc.
Each of these departments is managed by a person who has the necessary expertise in the respective field. It is therefore the head of the department who has decision-making powers and authority to give instructions to the employees at this vertical level.
The communication channels and also the structure of the line organization are thus clearly defined.


Matrix Organization

The project management itself is also a department organized in a vertical line.
But to realize their main task, the project execution, different specialists from the different departments are needed depending on the project requirements and scope.
In other words, the project manager is a kind of requester who receives the required resources from the respective head of department for a limited period of time. In this context, the project manager sometimes lacks direct decision-making and instructional authority in this horizontal level vis-à-vis the team members; This is because the respective head of department has this authority.
However, the overlapping responsibilities can be resolved by temporarily releasing individual employees from their jobs to work on another line.
This organization complicates the project processes and also the communication channels, which are now interwoven horizontally (project) and vertically (department) in a kind of matrix. Often diagonal communication channels are added for information exchange across the different projects.

The matrix organization is thus a form of multi-line organization.
Today's common implementation of a matrix organization distinguishes between the disciplinary line function, usually represented in the vertical, and the technical authority in the horizontal. The technical management is very often project-related and thus designed for a specific project period.

At MOBA, this is temporarily handled for each individual project in cooperation between the project management and the respective department and group leaders.

Don’t miss the previous parts from this series:
Part I (https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-1)
Part II (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-2)
Part III (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-3)
Part IV (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-4)
Part V (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-5)
Part VI (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-6)
Part VII (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-7)
Part VIII (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-8)
Part IX (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-9)
Part X (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-10)
Part XI (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-11)
Part XII (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-12)
Part XIII (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-13)
Part XIV (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-14)
Part XV (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-15)
Part XVI (
https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-16)
Part XVII (https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/The-MOBA-Project-Management-Part-17)

jung-roland 17.09.2020 0 2345
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