Project Manager Roles in a Matrix Structure

By Bob Turek, eHow Contributor

Project management roles are often laden with responsibility but
without authority. This is especially true in functional organizations,
which are classic management structures with upper and lower
management organized by functional areas such as marketing,
operations and accounting. In contrast, a matrix organization allows
people to report to project managers in addition to functional
managers. Matrix structures are classified as weak, strong and
balanced, although there are many levels in between. The classification
of matrix structure affects the role of the project manager.

Matrix organizations give more
authority to project managers.
Matrix Organizations
o Matrix organizations co-exist with functional organizations by allowing some employees to
report to two or more managers. With a degree of control over employees, project
managers in matrix organizations gain needed authority to run projects. Project
information flow tends to increase because of the breaking down of the barriers between
functional organizations.

Weak Matrix Structure
o Project managers in a weak matrix structure have some authority. This authority is related
to personnel issues, and the functional manager is still the primary manager. Because the
authority gained is so small, there is not much difference between a weak matrix structure
and no matrix structure at all.

Strong Matrix Structure
o Employee reporting in a strong matrix structure is primarily to the project manager. The
functional manager still has some control in the form of human resource administration,
but is clearly secondary. This approach is designed to free the project manager of
administrative duties to completely focus on projects. A company with a strong matrix
structure is more project-oriented in how it operates and provides products and services to
their customers.
Balanced Matrix Structure
o Along the continuum of weak versus strong matrix structures are the many versions of
balanced matrix structures. There are no clear characteristics because of the many
different types of balanced versions that can result. The idea is to give the project
managers and functional managers more equal authority. This is still better for project
managers because they have more authority than they would have in a weak structure.