ORGANIZING

TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES
 CHAPTER CONTENT
• REASONS FOR ORGANIZING
• ORGANIZING DEFINED
• THE PURPOSE OF STRUCTURE
• THE FORMAL ORGANIZATION
• INFORMAL GROUP
• TYPES OF ORGANIZARIONAL STRUCTURE
• TYPES OF AUTORITY
• THE PURPOSE OF COMMITTEES
 INTRODUCTION
• The engineer manager needs to acquire various skills in management,
including those for organizing technical activities. In this highly competitive
environment, unskilled manager will not be able to bring his unit, or his
company, as the case maybe, to success.
 INTRODUCTION
• The opportunities offered by skillful organizing are important for an
engineer manager to ignore. This chapter in intended to provide him with
some background and insight in organizing.
 REASON FOR ORGANIZING
• Organizing is undertaken to facilitate the implementation of plans. In
effective organizing, steps are undertaken to breakdown the total job into
more manageable man-size jobs. Doing these will make it possible to assign
particular task to particular persons. In turn this will help facilitate the
assignment of authority, responsibility, and accountability for certain
functions and tasks.
 ORGANIZING DEFINED
• Organizing is a management function which refers to ‘the structuring of
resources and activities to accomplish objectives in an efficient
manner.’
• The arrangement or relationship of positions within an organizing is called
the structure. The result of the organizing process is the structure.
 THE PURPOSE OF THE STRUCTURE
• The structure serves some very useful purposes. They are the following:
1. It defines the relationship between task and authority for individuals and
department.
2. It defines formal reporting relationships., the number of levels in the hierarchy of
the organization, and the span of control.
3. It defines the groupings of individual into departments into organizations.
4. It defines the system to effect coordination of effort in both vertical (authority)
and horizontal (tasks) directions.
When structuring an organization, the engineer
manager must be concerned with the following:
1. Division of labor - determining the scope of work and how it is combined in a
job.
2. Delegation of authority – the process of assigning various degrees of decision
making authority to subordinates.
3. Departmentation – the groupings of related jobs, activities, or processes into
major organizational subunits.
4. Span of control – the number of people who report directly to a given manager.
5. Coordination – the linking of activities in the organization that serves to achieve
a common goal or objectives.
 THE FORMAL ORGANIZATION
• The formal organization is “the structure that details lines of
responsibilities, authority, and position.”
• Formal Organization means the intentional structure of roles in a formally
organized enterprise.
• In Formal Organization, each and every person is assigned the duties,
authority, responsibilities and relationship as prescribed by the top
management.
 The formal structure is described by
management through:
• Organization chart
• Organization manual and
• Policy manual
 ORGANIZATION CHART
A graphic representation of the
structure of an organization,
showing the relationships of the
positions or jobs within it.
 ORGANIZATION MANUAL
• A small book which contains the information regarding the organization
structure, duties and responsibilities of each position, job, description,
salaries, prevailing relationships among members including organization
procedures and methods is called organization manual.
 POLICY MANUAL
• The purpose of your Policy Manual is to document the principles and
policies governing your Company’s department practices. When consistently
applied throughout the Company, these principles and policies assure that
the various reports and records issued by the Company accurately reflect
operational results.
 The principles and policies provide:
• The basis for an internal controls system.
• Criteria and guidance for business process decision making.
• Direction and guidance to ensure transactions, procedures, and records are
uniform throughout the Company.
 Informal Groups
• There some instances when members of an organization spontaneously
form a group with friendship as a principal reasons for belonging. This
group is called an informal group. It is not a part of formal organization
and it does not have a formal performance purpose.
• The informal organization, useful as it is, is ‘’vulnerable to expediency,
manipulation, and opportunism’’ according to Valentine. Its low visibility,
Valentine added, makes it ‘’difficult for management to detect these
previsions, and considerable harm can be done to the company.’’
PRODUCT OR MARKET
ORGANIZATION

•- It is appropriate for a large

corporation with many product
lines in several related industries
A Typical Product/Market Organization
for a Construction Company
 ADVANTAGES:
1. Flexible and responsive to change
2. Providing a high concern for customer’s needs
3. Providing excellent coordination across functional departments
4. Easy pinpointing of responsibility for product problems
5. Emphasis on overall product and division goals
6. Opportunity for the development of general management skills is
provided
 DISADVANTAGES:

1. High possibility of duplication of resources across divisions

2. Less technical depth and specialization in divisions
3. Poor coordination across divisions
4. Less top management control
5. Competition for corporate resources
 MATRIX ORGANIZATION

• - It is a structure with two or more channels

of command, two lines budget authority, and
two sources of performance and reward
A Typical Matrix Organization for a
Construction Firm
 ADVANTAGES:
1. More efficient use of resources than the divisional structure
2. There is flexibility and adaptability to changing environment
3. Development of both general and functional management skills are
present
4. Interdisciplinary cooperation and any expertise is available to all
divisions
5. There are enlarged tasks for employees which motivate them better
 DISADVANTAGES:

1. Frustration and confusion from dual chain of command

2. High conflict between divisional and functional interests
3. Many meetings and more discussion than action
4. Need for human relations training for key employees and
managers
5. Tendency for power dominance by one side of the matrix
 Types of authority
The delegation of authority is a requisite for effective organizing. It consists of
three types:
• Line authority- a manager’s right to tell subordinates what to do and then
see what they do it.
• Staff authority- a staff specialty right to give advice to a superior.
• Functional authority- a specialist right to oversee lower level personnel
involved in that specialty, regardless of where the personnel are in the
organization.
Typical Matrix organization of a
Construction firm
 LINE DEPARTMENT
• Line department perform task that reflects the organization primary goal
and mission. In a construction firm, the department that negotiates and
secures contracts for the form is a line department. The construction
division is also a line function.
 STAFF DEPARTMENT
• Staff department include all those that provide specialized skills in support
of the line department. Examples of staff departments include those which
perform strategic planning, labor relations, research, accounting and
personnel
 Staff officers may be classified into the
following:

• Personnel staff- those individuals assigned to a specific manager to

provide needed staff services.
• Specialized staff- those individual providing needed staff services for the
whole organization.
 FUNCTIONAL AUTHORITY
• Functional authority is one given to a person or a work group to make
decisions related to their expertise even if these decisions concern other
departments. This authority is given to most budget officers of
organizations, as well as other officers.
 THE PURPOSE OF COMMITEES
A committee is a formal group of persons formed for a specific purpose.
For instance the product planning committee, as described by Millevo, is
“often staffed by top executive from marketing, production, research
engineering, and finance, who work part-time to evaluate and approve
product ideas.”
 COMMITTEE MAY BE CLASSIFIED AS
FOLLOWS:
1. Ad hoc committee – one created for short term purpose and have a
limited life. An example is the committee created to manage the
anniversary festivities of a certain firms.
2. Standing committee – it is a relatively permanent committee that deals
with issues on an ongoing basis. An example is the grievance committee set
up to handle initially complaints from employees of the organization.
 SUMMARY
• REASONS FOR ORGANIZING
-undertaken to facilitate the implementation of plans.
-have steps to follows
• ORGANIZING DEFINED
-structuring of resource and activities to accomplish objectives in an efficient manner.
• THE PURPOSE OF STRUCTURE
- Arrangement or relationship of positions within an organization.
- Result of organizing process.
• THE FORMAL ORGANIZATION
- The structure that details lines of responsibilities, authority, and position.
- Planned structure.
• INFORMAL GROUP
-harm can be done to the company
• TYPES OF ORGANIZARIONAL STRUCTURE
-functional, product and matrix organization
• TYPES OF AUTORITY
- Line, staff, and functional autority
• THE PURPOSE OF COMMITTEES
-formal group
- Ad hoc and standing committee.