Matrix Organization

What a matrix organization is

A matrix organization (التنظيم المصفوفي), also called a matrix structure, is a structure in which an employee reports to two lines at the same time: to the manager of their specialism, and to the manager of the project or product on which they are working.

The definition names both lines and sets them side by side. The first line follows the employee’s specialism and runs to the manager responsible for that specialism. The second line follows the work in hand and runs to the manager of the project or the product to which the employee is assigned. The words “at the same time” settle how the two lines relate to each other. The employee does not leave one line in order to join the other. Both lines are in place together, and the employee answers to both of them while working on that project or product.

Why an establishment turns to a matrix organization

A traditional structure built on departments keeps each specialism separate. Each department gathers the people of one specialism, and each specialism works within its own department.

That separation makes it difficult to bring together a team drawn from several specialisms around a single product without moving employees permanently out of their departments. Under the departmental structure, each specialist sits in a different department and answers to that department alone.

A matrix organization allows a different arrangement. The accountant, the programmer and the designer can all work on one project, while each of them stays connected to their specialism. That connection covers three things: the specialism itself, the standards of that specialism, and the employee’s career path within it. The project draws on the employee’s work through the second line, and the specialism keeps its standards and the employee’s career path through the first.

Choosing a matrix organization is a decision of comparison, not of admiration. The question it answers is not whether the structure is attractive in itself, but how it compares with the alternatives for the situation in which the establishment finds itself. A matrix is one of the types of organizational structures, each of which suits a different situation, and the divisional structure is another of them.

The structural problem in a matrix organization

Dual reporting means a dual demand on the same employee’s time. Each of the two lines can ask for the employee’s working hours, and both of them are asking for the same hours.

When the two demands conflict, the employee carries the burden of deciding between them, without holding the tools needed to make that decision. The choice is placed on the employee, but the means of making it are not. This becomes visible when pressure rises on both lines at once.

The remedy is not a slogan about cooperation. It is a set of rules written in advance, before any conflict arises:

• Who holds priority over the employee’s time when the two demands conflict, and who decides if the conflict is not resolved. Two answers are written down here: the line whose demand comes first, and the person who settles a conflict that the two lines have not settled between them.
• A declared share of each employee’s time between the two reporting lines, not an implicit understanding. It states how much of the employee’s time goes to the specialism and how much goes to the project or product, and it is declared openly rather than left to an unspoken agreement.
• Who writes the performance review, and with what weight the other line’s opinion enters it. One line is named as the author of the review, and the weight given to the view of the other line is fixed in advance.
• Who approves leave and training requests. When the employee asks for leave or for training, the rule fixes which of the two lines gives the approval.

Without these rules, the weighing of one demand against the other stays with the employee. The disagreement then changes in kind. Instead of an incident that is settled and closed, it becomes a standing condition of the employee’s work.

What a matrix organization costs

A matrix organization increases the number of meetings. It also increases the number of people who have to be informed of each decision, and it slows down small decisions.

This is a real cost, and it is paid in return for a specific advantage: the ability to bring specialisms together around a goal without restructuring. The advantage is the one described above, in which people from several specialisms work towards one goal while each stays in the specialism to which they belong, and the departments are not redrawn to make that possible.

If the establishment does not in fact need that advantage, the cost is paid for nothing. The additional meetings, the wider circle of people to be informed and the slower small decisions all remain, while the advantage for which they are paid goes unused.

When a matrix organization does not fit

A matrix organization does not fit an establishment in which responsibilities have not yet settled within its simple structure in the first place. The matrix doubles the ambiguity that already exists and does not resolve it. An establishment that has not yet settled who is responsible for what under one reporting line does not settle it by adding a second line.

Where project managers have no real authority, a matrix organization does not fit either. In that case the second line becomes nominal: it appears in the structure, but it does not carry the authority that would make it a line in practice. The work then falls back on the first structure, with the extra cost of the matrix added to it.

The matrix is among the cases in which the decision depends, before anything else, on span of control (نطاق الإشراف) and on the clarity of the lines of responsibility, that is, on whether the establishment already knows, within its simple structure, who answers for each part of the work.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.