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Essentials of Project Management - Assignment # 2

The document provides advice to Adam Smith, a newly hired project manager at Suburban Homes Construction Projects Company (SHCPC), on improving project success rates as the company expands. It recommends that Smith understand SHCPC's success criteria and stakeholders. It also advises that Smith study the environmental challenges of expanding to new regions, understand SHCPC's current workflows and processes, and align his vision with the company's objectives by researching competitors. The document then discusses three organizational structures and determines that a matrix structure would best suit SHCPC, as it allows Smith to manage projects while functional managers also provide support, avoiding overburdening Smith as he is new to the role.

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Uzair Amir
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189 views3 pages

Essentials of Project Management - Assignment # 2

The document provides advice to Adam Smith, a newly hired project manager at Suburban Homes Construction Projects Company (SHCPC), on improving project success rates as the company expands. It recommends that Smith understand SHCPC's success criteria and stakeholders. It also advises that Smith study the environmental challenges of expanding to new regions, understand SHCPC's current workflows and processes, and align his vision with the company's objectives by researching competitors. The document then discusses three organizational structures and determines that a matrix structure would best suit SHCPC, as it allows Smith to manage projects while functional managers also provide support, avoiding overburdening Smith as he is new to the role.

Uploaded by

Uzair Amir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Question # 1: What advice would you offer to Adam Smith on improving the performance

of project management and increasing project success rate?  Minimum 250 words.

Answer: Suburban homes is going to expand the business so there are numerous challenges that
the company is going to face. It was a right decision to hire a professional Project Manager Mr.
Adam Smith since he is educated and has several years of experience in the construction
industry. Since Mr. Adam has just been hired and the company is planning to formalize project
management practices, following are the advices I would give to Mr. Adam:

Success Criteria of Suburban Homes:


The first and the foremost advice for Mr. Adam is that he needs to understand what the success
criteria of the Suburban homes is, is it completion and delivery of the project in time regardless
of the budget, is it cost efficiency or is it just making good profits out of every project.
Moreover, it is also suggested to identify the stakeholders of SHCPC and understand their
interest and expectations.
Environmental Analysis:
Suburban homes has good reputation in building quality single-family homes and townhomes in
the Midwest region and is now planning to expand its business in several Southern states in the
United States. Since SHCPC is planning to move to a different geographical location SHCPC
might face some environmental challenges. The environment and soil type might be different in
the Southern states as in the Midwest region and depending upon the soil the project planning
will differ. Moreover, Mr. Adam will have to study all the risk factors involved in construction
projects in Southern States of the US.
Understanding current workflow of SHCPC:
Mr. Adam would have to study and understand the current workflow procedure of the company.
As stated Suburban Homes is planning to formulate project management process in the company
it would be a bit difficult in the beginning for both the managers as well as the human resource to
accept and adopt to the abrupt changes within the organization.

Understanding the Vision of the Company:


He has to understand the mission, vision and the sole purpose of the company. Different
companies have different objectives and since Suburban homes is fast growing company, the
owners might have different expectations from the company as compared to Mr. Adam’s
thoughts. Understanding the objectives of the company will help him organize projects
accordingly.
A relative study of the competitors might also help him to understand the shortcoming of the
organizations structure. He will have to carry out study of both the competitors of SHCPC in
Midwest state as well as Southern states of the United States.
Question # 2: Describe the organizational structure that might best suit Suburban Homes. 
Ensure that your discussion includes all possible structures and why each is ruled out.  Minimum
250 words.
Answer: To understand which organizational structure might be the best for Suburban Homes
we need to understand all the organizational structures in detail. There are three types of
organizational structures.
Functional Structure:
Functional structure is an organizational structure in which the employees are divided in to teams
based on their skills, roles, capabilities and knowledge headed by a director or manager. It is
based on hierarchy system in which organization is divided into smaller groups with designated
tasks based on their skills and experience and are supervised by their respective managers. For
example, an Information Technology organization can be divided in to Marketing department
supervised by Director Marketing, Design department headed by Director Design, Finance
Department supervised by Finance Director Etc. and each director or manager is answerable to
the CEO or the executive body.
The advantage of functional structure of an organization is since employees are grouped by their
skillset and knowledge area they all can collectively use their energies on executing their tasks
and it will also enhance the skills of junior team members. The disadvantages of functional
structure of an organization is inter-department communication as most of the issues and
discussions are done on managerial level of different departments.

Though Functional Organizational structure has benefits but for Suburban Homes Construction
Projects Company it is not suitable since they have hired Mr. Adam Smith to manage things and
in Functional Organizational Structure the Functional Leaders are responsible for reporting to the
Executive body of the organization.

Projectized Organizational Structure

Projectized organizational structure is somehow an opposite of the Functional Organizational


Structure having one thing in common, i.e. the organization may group team members according
to their tasks and functions but there is no functional manager. If there is a functional manager,
his/her role will be minimal with no authority. In this organizational structure Project Manager
has full authority and is responsible for budgeting, scheduling, planning and team management
and is answerable to the executives.
The advantage of Projectized Organizational Structure is that there is an established line of
authority and the team knows whom to follow. Planning, decision making and approval are
under the control of Project Manager which makes the communication efficient and easier and
the team acquires better knowledge and experience. However, the disadvantage of the
Projectized Organizational structure is that it might over-burden the Project Manager as he is
solely responsible for planning, budgeting, team management and scheduling tasks. Secondly,
this might create a stressful environment as every project has deadline and tight schedules
specially while working on multiple projects.

Although Projectized Organizational Structure has its benefits, it is not suitable for Suburban
Homes Construction Projects Company since the company has recently hired the Project
Manager Mr. Adam Smith, it is not feasible to burden him with all the tasks right away as it
might result in anxiety and pressurized work environment for Mr. Smith.

Matrix Organizational Structure

The matrix organizational structure is a combination of Projectized and functional organizational


structure. It can be said that is found lying somewhere between these two organizational
structures. Matrix Organizational structure includes both the Project Manager as well as
Functional Manager which means that it is composed of traditional management hierarchy
(having functional managers) as well as project managers who can manage the employees.

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