Pöyry is an incredible company which has grown in incredible ways – around 7000 staff in 50 offices and a strong entrepreneurial streak.
Like any company experiencing growth it faces a challenge: how do you grow in size whilst maintaining the qualities that made you successful in the first place?
We are delighted that they’ve allowed us to share some of their challenges and our work with them in our Pöyry case study.
Their challenges are common to many companies that have grown, diversified or simply acquired another company – in short the challenges that, ironically, accompany success. Maintaining an entrepreneurial streak, the challenges of working in more than one country and the local/global balance are amongst the daily dilemmas for the leaders of global companies.
Pöyry has recognised this and developed a programme which incorporates the most up to date thinking on global leadership, including global organization structures, working across global cultures and leading remote and virtual teams.
If you want to hook up with our senior consultants this week, you have a choice of continents!
In Europe, the UK is unusually popular with Kevan Hall and Tony Poots out and about in Berkshire for most of the week, Phil Stockbridge in London, and John Bland in Oxford on Wednesday.
Elsewhere in Europe, John will be headed for Düsseldorf, Germany, on Thursday and Friday, and Rod Farnan will be in Switzerland for most of the week.
In the US, Tim Mitchell will be in Connecticut, and Robyn Green on the East coast, whilst TH Ong will share his time between California and Asia.
As part of our ongoing Matrix Monday series, which aims to share some of the limited literature available on the matrix, today we summarise Implementation and performance of a Matrix Organisation structure: by John A. Kuprenas (International Journal of Project Management 21 (2003) 51–62)
Based on a case study of the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Public Works, specifically its Bureau of Engineering, this paper provides an overview of a matrix organization in implementation and operation. Its purpose is to help project managers look at how solutions can be found within their own matrix structures by learning how the challenges were identified and tackled within this case study research, and also aims to help managers perform an overall review of the effectiveness of entire organizational structure change.
The paper follows the case study from the identification of the need for a change in organizational structure, through to the implementation and creation of the matrix, and looks at problems encountered throughout this process as well as how these were managed.
It provides a relatively in-depth look at matrix creation and implementation, how performance improvements were experienced, and a delineation of functional manager and project manager roles and responsibilities within this organization.
This study found that despite implementation problems that were encountered, the performance of the organization while operating under a matrix structure was improved, and specific benefits to managers are documented within the paper.
Further matrix related literature has been summarised in our Matrix Monday series, and for readers on Twitter, the hashtag #matrixmonday is being trialled as a way of sharing further work.
We live in an integrated world where advances in technology, progressive politics and tremendous social change mean that all nations are now linked.
In this entry for our Global Working video competition, global citizen Yehia Amar takes a view from three perspectives: social media, financial markets and the free market economy.
He goes on to look at what this means in a national, and international, context, and asks whether globalization presents and opportunity to be embraced or traps to be avoided.
To vote for Yehia’s entry, or for the other entries in the competition, you’ll need to go to our video competition page, where you’ll find entries from a would be racing mechanic, a social media specialist and more.
Yehia needs your vote to help him make the competition shortlist, so do make a few moments to take a look.
If you’d like to know more about how we help make matrixed organizations faster, better, happier places to work, feel free to contact us for further information.
As part of our ongoing series of reviews on the limited literature available on the matrix, we’re kicking off this working week with a brief summary of Making Matrix Structures Work: Creating Clarity on Unit Roles and Responsibility by Michael Goold (Ashridge Strategic Management Centre) and Andrew Campbell (Ashridge Strategic Management Centre). (European Management Journal, Vol. 21, No. 3, June 2003)
The matrix structure may appear to be a logical organisational solution, yet a lack of clarity on roles can often mean that managers find it confusing and inefficient. This article examines the issue, and argues that a key requirement in matrix structures is to have defined roles and responsibilities.
The authors state that if managers are unclear about their respective responsibilities, there will be conflict about who should take the lead on activities and confusion around decision-making. Case studies of where such situations have arisen are given. They proceed to outline what needs to be specified to managers regarding their broad responsibilities, relationships and accountabilities in order that roles are explicitly defined.
The article also tackles the idea that managers lack a widely accepted language for distinguishing between different unit roles. The authors have devised a taxonomy, or new language, of eight ‘unit types’ in which to aid this process. They call this the ‘roles language’ and contend that it has great value in allowing clearer specifications of how organisation designs are intended to work.
If this interests you, you might also enjoy participating in our Matrix Management Group on LinkedIn, and our team of expert consultants is always on hand to discuss your needs.
We’d normally start the week the week by letting you know where our consultants will be this week. And this week is unusual on several counts.
Firstly, it’s the new year, so before anything else, we wish you health, wealth and happiness for 2012.
Because it’s new year, many people’s first working day back is a Tuesday – including ours – so we’re blogging later than usual.
And because it’s new year all of the team will be together for a team meeting. As a virtual team ourselves, we meet several times each year to share thoughts, progress, ideas and experience – and to have some fun/time for celebration together – it’s a way of getting to know each other better when separated by distance. At this time’s meeting, we’ll be celebrating the long service of one of our senior consultants, Janet Davis. (More on this later in the week.)
Meeting up with any of our team this week is therefore going to be tough unless you happen to be in the South of England, but you can always contact them either directly, or through you closest regional office, and we’ll do our best to arrange something mutually convenient.
We’re looking forward to a great 2012, and to sharing it with you as we go.
Continuing our Matrix Monday series, where we take a look at some of the better papers and literature on the matrix organization (leadership, management and working practise), today’s summary is on Matrix structures and the training implications by W. David Rees and Christine Porter (Industrial and Commercial Training Volume 36, Number 5, 2004)
This short paper stresses the importance of appropriate multi-disciplinary training for team leaders in matrix structures, in order for the new organizational arrangement to be effective. It looks at this training need within the context of reasons for implementation of matrix structures, and addresses some of the obstacles to effective operation of matrix structures around leadership. These may involve leadership motivation issues, lack of formal authority for leaders, the existence of weak management structures, and the reintegration of project leaders back into the wider organisation after project completion.
The article suggests several strategies to increase the chance of success within the matrix structure . These include ensuring support from senior management, ensuring the soundness of the general management structure into which the matrix will be introduced, ensuring that reward arrangements are appropriate, providing adequate administrative support to the team, and keeping the effectiveness of the matrix structure under review.
The authors finally note that the introduction of matrix structures may reveal management selection and training needs on the part of the senior managers responsible for the implementation and monitoring of it.
Hot on the heels of our mini racing mechanic, we now have a new entry to our video competition, this time from a social media/blogging specialist, Scott James of Influence People, whose talking about the role of global integration in his work as a writer.
You can see the video below, but Scott needs your votes, so do take a look at his competition entry page.
Scott makes a very good point that even making a video has have multi-national involvement, and, of course, that social media transcends boundaries. Also mentioned is that age old problem of multi-national working: time zones.
