Project Management For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Aligning the Key Players for Your Project

In This Chapter

• Stepping from traditional to project organizations

• Establishing order in the matrix organization

• Building a successful matrix

In the traditional work environment, your supervisor assigned your work, completed your performance appraisals, approved your salary increases, and authorized your promotions. However, increasing numbers of organizations are moving toward a structure where a variety of people direct the work assignments. The greatest advantage of this new structure? It supports faster and more effective responses to the diverse projects in an organization.

Success in this new project‐oriented organization requires you to

• Recognize the people who define and influence your work environment.

• Understand their unique roles.

• Know how to work effectively with them to create a successful project.

This chapter helps you define your organization's environment and understand everyone's roles. I also provide ways to ensure your project's success by focusing on the matrix structure.

Defining the Organizational Environment

Over the years, projects have evolved from organizational afterthoughts to major vehicles for conducting business and developing future capabilities. Naturally, the approaches for organizing and managing projects have evolved as well.

This section focuses on one organizational approach for handling projects, the matrix, which is extensively used in organizations today. At the end of the section, I discuss two ...