Impact of organizational structures in managing a project

The availability of resources is a critical factor in project management, as it determines the conduct of a project and non-availability is a constraint which is difficult to overcome. Another factor as stated by PMBOK (2008), is the ability for the organization to influence the conduct of a project, therefore to mitigate the risk of facing the above constraints, its is vital to identify the organizational structures.

Madura (2007), depicts that an organizational structure identifies responsibilities for each job role and the relationship among the positions and describes how each responsibility fit together to have a positive impact  on the efficiency of an organization.  

Structures adopted and implemented by organizations, differ from each other due to the following factors;

• Span of Control
• Organizational Height
• Use of line versus staff positions

The different types of organizational structures identified by PMBOK (2008) are as follows.

Table 1 : Organizational Structure

The organizational structures and the influences on the projects are as follows;

Figure 20 : Organizational structure influences on projects (Source: PMBOK 2008)

References

Madura, J., 2007. Introduction to Business. Canada: Thomson South-western.

PMBOK, 2008. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. 4th ed. Newtown Square: Project Management Institute, Inc