29115113

M. Ray Akbar Mutalibov

YP53 B

GLOBAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Do you think that personnel working in a project organizational structure should undergo
therapy sessions or seminars on a regular basis to better understand their working
environment?
If yes, how frequently? Does the frequency depend upon the project organizational form
selected, or should they all be treated equally?

Basic
Understanding of
Project
Organizational
Structure

Before going further with the explanation of do those people need to

receive some sort of therapy sessions, it is important to understand
what is project organizational structure first. Project organizational
structures dier from the traditional structure, where the project ones
provide a framework for deploying and implementing project activities
within a parent organization. Most business organizations have
diculties when implementing the project organizational structure
because the projects contradict fundamental principles which
possessed by traditional organizations. Most companies are able to
manage their business activities eciently by breaking down complex
tasks into simplified and repetitive process, which also the traditional
organizations practice. However, since projects are unique and one-time
eorts (not routine), it is not to be advised using traditional structure
since it is not suited for the project itself. The activities that happen on a
project might be diers from the ones on traditional business activities.
This resulting the people who work in a project, if still working in
traditional organizational structure environment, might not achieved the
optimum output.

How Project
Members Aect the
Project Itself

There are several type of project organizational structure available, such

as functional, line-sta, pure product (projectized), and matrix
organizational form. Each of them has their respective advantages and
disadvantages which become their unique point that become a
consideration when an organization decide what form fits best with their
project. As for whether the personnel working in whatever project
organizational structure need to get some kind of therapy sessions or
seminars, it would be wise if they do. Any organizational changes may
aect the individuals who are working within, and it applied when the
business organizations decide and create the project organizational
structure. The project members initially might not be accustomed with
the new responsibilities, constraints, resources, or even their own coworkers within that project. This commonly happen in the first phase of
project, but if occur for a long time it is a bad sign for the project since
the time, cost, and quality of the project may not be optimum as the
original target. Long-term underperforming personnel in a project
negatively aect the whole project itself since it could be delaying the
project timeline, overspending resources, and poor delivery of final
project output. All of those are, one of the major cause, because of the
working personnel still not familiar with the project environment.

29115113

M. Ray Akbar Mutalibov

YP53 B

Do the Project
Members Need
Therapy
Sessions?

As such, therapy sessions such as seminars, workshop, or even

individual counseling might overcome the problem. The business
organizations should conduct those sessions to make the working
personnel get back on track. The content of the sessions might be
adjusted with the needs of the members themselves, but the materials
for understanding the project better and how to act in projectenvironment basis must be included in those therapy. The sessions may
be in form of small workshop in the initial phase of the project. The
workshop could give them the complete understanding of project
objective, scopes, lifespan, even available budget and resources. It
might be even better if the workshop teach them the work culture that
would be applied in the project, so the members can act accordingly.
Whatever the therapy form would be, as long as the contents able to
make the working personnel understands with the project environment
and familiar with, it is essential and required for the success of the
project.

What about the

Therapy
Frequency?

Since the therapy session is essential, the next question would appear how frequently does the therapy need to be? does it depends on the
project organizational form selected? Conducting those therapy
sessions are obviously take a quite amount of money. While the
sessions might indeed make the working personnel perform eectively,
it may be not financially. Although the project may be done properly in
the term of time and quality, the cost could be over-the-limit because of
those sessions. Or worse, if the project is very strictly time-limited,
conducting many workshops and seminars would only delaying the
project. As such, the frequency should depends on the project
organizational form selected and project constraints.

For instance, the functional organizational structure have advantages of

no change since projects are completed within the basic functional
structure of the parent organization. Thus, there is no drastic change in
the design and operation. For this kind of structure, conducting
minimum amount of therapy session would be ideal, since the members
already familiar with the structure. It is the same case for the projectized
structure. Since the cost of maintaining this structure is high,
conducting lot of therapy sessions would make the project suers
financially.

Dierent example is on the matrix organizational structure. This

structure is relatively ecient since the resources can be shared across
multiple projects and flexible utilization of the resources itself. However,
it tend to make infighting conflict, since the resources are shared, the
involved parties are usually fight for the scarce resources. As such,
many therapy sessions should be conducted to make sure that the
working personnel get a complete understanding for the fair resource
usage. Whatever the content of the therapy would be, the frequency
should depends on the organizational form selected to avoid waste of
cost and time .