What is it called when a project is ongoing, call it project x, and people who have been assigned to this project cannot be touched, i.e, they are dedicated to work on project x alone and have the right to refuse even other managers requests telling them to work on project y. Is their a technical word for this and is it common? Saving Changes...
S RajasekarSenior Project Manager| AllscriptsBangalore, Karnataka, India
In projectized organization resource availability to a project :high to almost total, in short it is called " Projectized Org" PM has full control as well Saving Changes...
Thanks, this is why I'm querying the reply I got in an interview I did as part of a dissertation. The person said the organisation was a matrix organisation. Here's the reply in full:
Here people get assigned to a team and they can’t be touched. This is a matrix organisation. That means that people on my team, I don’t actually have any control over them once they go on a project team. I am here primarily to facilitate them to make sure that they have the right training, the right tools, that they’re motivated, that they don’t have any issues stopping them from doing their work. Once they’re on a project team they report to the project manager, I’m not responsible for making sure they do their work. I can’t say for example to a colleague that I need you here on a project for two days. The way the company is setup is that he’s one hundred percent on the project for the budget of time. It works well from a project point of view, you’ve got your people and they don’t go anywhere. Saving Changes...
Agree with S. it's more a "projectized" organization than a "matrix"organization. I've worked in both; google few good definitions. It may be referred to differently in different cultures of an organization. Saving Changes...
You're talking about "Dedicated" as opposed to "Shared" resources. Dedicated resources are more common in projectized and strong matrix organizations, but even weak matrix organizations can have critical projects with dedicated resources.
Agile gleefully stomps on the definitions of matrix and projectized organizations. You have people dedicated to a project, but no project manager. Saving Changes...
I agree with what has been shared by others. This is definitely a Projectized organization. The PMBOK actually provides a definition of this type of environment as well for reference. Saving Changes...
@ Aaron, your comment about how Agile treats the definition of matrix and projectized organizations is interesting. I wonder how this will be explained in the new version of the PMBOK. Saving Changes...
What kind of a scenario would you call this: A company that builds machinery has one project manager managing multiple projects. Lets say there are between 5 and 10 projects ongoing at any one time. There are multiple departments including design, assembly, automation, controls, quality...These departments are not highly cross functional and so work is handed off once completed but there is still consultation among departments albeit only when problems need to be ironed out. When something of high priority crops up a person from any of these departments may be pulled from their existing work and put on the new priority job. This is a matrix organisation correct? Saving Changes...
Dedicated resources cannot be used for any other project
Based on project size (if small) shared resources can be used
In case of shared resources, PM should have proper schedule with team and peer project PM to ensure required allocation of work as per schedule... Saving Changes...