List And Describe Five Advantages / Disadvantage Of A Matrix

Advantages of Matrix Organisations are:

1. Visibility of resources skills
2. Organizational authorities to Project Manager over staff.
3. Maintaining specialised skills
4. Disadvantages of Matrix Organisations are:
5. Sophisticated resources Management
6. Conflict in Priorities

1. One advantage for Matrix Organisations is the visibility of resources skills within the organisation and recognising their capabilities. That enables PM to carefully select his potential employees to carry out the specific required works for the durations they are needed for. For example, one pumping station project requires the contribution of experienced instrumentation Engineer for only two weeks every three months along the one year project duration, PM can use the instrumentation Engineer across the business when his services are needed.
2. Another advantage for Matrix Organisations is allowing the project manager an organisational authority over the staff. That enables project manager to lead and direct the project team during the project execution. For example staff need to get the project manager approval on their annual leaves since these may contradict with planned delivery dates. PM may ask staff to stay late after working hours to finish the delayed works.
3. Third advantage for Organisation Matrix is allowing the organisations to maintain the specialised skills inside the company. Resources can be moved and utilised among different projects and once one project is finished they can easily move to another. That is useful as it secures the individuals jobs and keeps them motivated. For example, the experienced instrumentation engineer time will be distributed on more than one ongoing projects in the Organisation.
4. One dis-advantage for Matrix organisation is the required sophisticated resources management culture. Project Manager has to do efforts to recognise the skilled resources who can efficiently complete the works. PM has to make sure that these resources will be available when needed as they may be busy in other projects. For example, PM finds the experienced instrumentation Engineer busy with other immediate deliverables required for another project, and accordingly he will not be able to fulfil his tasks on time.
5. Another disadvantage for Matrix Organisation is that staff have to report to two managers (i.e. their line manager and the project manager). That can confuse staff, since they can find their priorities in conflict between the two mangers. For example if an employee finds more than one person trying to direct his time, he may be uncertain who to satisfy.