Paul Naybour
Response to question 2: Describe five difficulties that a profect manager may experience when working in a matrix environment and give examples of things they can do to alleviate these.
– A project manager working in a matrix organisation may have difficulties persuading staff to work on a project as they may consider their priorities lie with undertaking the day to day work set by their line manager rather than working on the project. To alleviate this problem project managers must develop good comunication and influencing skils to try and persuade members of staff to work on their project.
– Obtaining the correct level of resource to work on a project may prove difficult because staff with the required skills may be employed elsewhere in the organisation. The project manager must therefore have a thorough understanding of the skills and levels of resource available within the organisation so that staff can be utilised across the business.
– Because staff working in a matrix envirionment work for a line manager within their own department project managers must develop a good working relationship with the fuctional heads of the departments. This is important as it will enable them to request that staff with relevant skills such as marketing, planning or design are made available to work on their project.
– Staff may be career minded and may not want to become involved in projects which have no career structure and may have long timescales. The project manager must convince the member of staff of the motivation that can be gained from working on projects and the benefits they will bring to the organisation.
– Some members of staff may wish to maintain and develop new skills within the functional part of the matrix environment. This is not always possible when working on a project and the project manager must encourage staff to apply their skills to the project and assist in feeding any lessons learnt from the project back into the organisation
Your thoughts on the above responses would be appreciated.
Thanks
Tim Barnett
Tim I really do like this answer. You have selected five very different areas to build your answer on and have explained the problem well and the actions a PM can take to overcome the issues. Well done. 9 more like that and you can be sure of a pass.