In the last lesson, we examined different types of project organizations and the advantages and disadvantages of each. Now we want to take a look at how we select the project organization for our project. In this lesson, we'll examine how to select the appropriate organization for your project, which factors may govern this choice and how the project type and size might influence this choice. With that in mind, let's get started. The biggest influence on type of project organization you select for your project may be the culture, resources capabilities and typical way of doing business of the organization you work for. All the factors shown here will influence the ability of a project manager to be successful. It will impact the execution approach and guide how the project will proceed. Most projects follow the method that the organization feels most comfortable with, even if few believe another approach is better, you may not have the choice. Most organizations have a preferred organization style they use with virtually all of their projects. If this has proven successful, why change? The only convincing reason to change, is a current project does not fit the pattern of the organizations previous successes. Over the course of this discussion, we will review which factors influence project organization choice and which projects are typically executed and which format, hopefully this will give you some basis to select the project organization style or to recommend the change from your organization standard. What are some of the special factors that may influence your selection of project organization style? Each of these factors could have a major influence on what project organization style is used on a project. For instance, if the organization does not have a lot of resources, then it's not likely to use a project based organization, you can spare the resources from its ongoing operations. If the project is short duration, it may not be worth disrupting the operation for the short time the project is running and so forth. So in the next few minutes we'll examine some of the factors and their impact on the organizations thinking. Functional Based Organizations, what types of projects have been successfully executed in these environments? Where do we typically see these projects approaches used? Functional based organizations work best in small organizations with limited resources, these organizations cannot afford to move people out of their positions to work on a project. These organizations work best with simple small projects, that are very similar to the projects the organization executes on an ongoing basis. These projects are typically low cost, low risk and can be conducted in the normal course of business and are not schedule critical. What are some examples of projects that fit in this category? Standard software updates come in the mind, not the big complicated ones where you do the program, but the ongoing updates and new releases to fix things or optimize performance. Concept studies, these are the studies before the project is authorizer or even fully defined. These are typically done by staff members within their function and prove whether or not the larger project is worth pursuing. Till a project proves economic, it's not usually worth creating a project team. Similarly, project definition studies, which take the concept studies and advance them to the next step are done in a functional organization. These studies start to put some of the project requirements and specifications together to give the concept more definition in anticipation of a project being authorized. Again, until the project is authorized, limited expenditures are the rule. Weak matrix Organization, projects executed in a weak matrix organization tend to be small projects of limited duration. They tend to be relatively simple, with few changes in execution approach or scope relative to projects typically undertaken by the organization. Like the functional based projects, they tend to be low cost and low risk in nature with moderate schedule pressure. Example projects might include maintenance projects. An example might be a minor pump repair, each department manages its portion of the work, but it's all coordinated by one engineer. For instance, first the electrical group might come out and disconnect the pump from the power, the piping group disconnects the pump from the piping, and the mechanical group makes defense of the pump. The process reverses itself then everything's put back together, all under the direction of the unit engineer. Another example is when the organization puts together a task force to recommend changes.
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