Making matrix management work

Matrix management is a process that many project professionals view as ineffective, restrictive, and non-productive, as a multi-source management structure that has often generated conflicts between project managers and functional managers. One company, however, has found a way to successfully use this organizational structure to realize projects. This article describes the matrix process Dorr-Oliver developed and identifies the benefits and problems it encountered while creating this system as well as the structural changes it initiated to avoid the inherent pitfalls of using the structure; it explains Dorr-Oliver's two attempts--the first unsuccessful, the second successful--to implement a matrix structure. It then defines the four types of organizational structures: functional, pure project, task force, and matrix.