What the Hell is Matrix Management?

It’s a common enough term these days, but what does ‘Matrix Management’ actually mean? what is it trying to achieve? and is it working?

If you search on-line you can find numerous definitions. Here are just three:

·       “A style of management where an individual has two reporting superiors (bosses) - one functional and one operational.”
·   “Multiple command-and-control structure in which some employees have dual responsibilities and dual bosses”
·   “A style of management in which one person works for more than one supervisor on a riety of tasks”
 
The common thread is obvious; it’s the one-to-many relationship between an individual carrying out a series of designated tasks and the two (or more!) people who need to get those things done. The other key theme is that the Managers concerned will often have different agendas – e.g. functional vs. operational – and/or responsibilities. By definition, this must mean that a proportion of the delegated tasks (and maybe up to 100%!) will not be common or shared. Again, by definition, this must imply that some degree of conflict or ambiguity will be an everyday reality for the employee charged with carrying out the tasks concerned.

So why do it? What is it intended to achieve? Well, many things. Here are some suggestions.

It’s a recognition of / response to increased complexity in business / IT. Perhaps especially in IT, the days of people having just one job with a single focus have long gone. People’s roles have broadened, and in many cases they have to know more or contribute to more things – and often these ‘things’ or areas of expertise are explicitly owned by different individuals e.g. Bill owns the Oracle Databases but Charlie owns everything to do with the Disaster Recovery regime including those databases. Dave is the technical expert who has to execute tasks for both of them.

It’s a way of responding to multiple perspectives. Less technical perhaps, but there are examples where people are pulled in multiple directions: they work for a specific country business unit, but have to contribute to a global initiative or service. Or customers in a single business are perhaps brand-based, and these brands have different requirements on the same resource. Or in order to instil greater service excellence into a technical discipline, people have to work with/for the service management guys as well as their operational line manager. And so on.

It’s a means to reduce headcount / control costs. More for less. If we can get our people focussed in two directions, meeting two requirements simultaneously, then we could just be saving on headcount, cost etc. – and in these difficult financial times, that’s clearly important.

However, my concern is that matrix management can actually be more of an excuse than a solution.

Look at what’s wrong with the model from a practical perspective.

·         It will tend to create a lack of clarity and confusion: what’s more important, task A or task B? whose agenda is the most important one? does the operational boss trump the functional boss – or is it the other way round?
·         The potential for instilling ambiguity is high. Instinctively, people struggle with ambiguity, especially if they can’t do anything about it. And that can lead to them mentally disengaging; you lose their enthusiasm, goodwill…
·         If people become torn between tasks, bosses, agendas, if they start to disengage, then they might proactively (if unconsciously) adopt a position of refusing accountability. “How could I be accountable and deliver this”, they might say, “because A, B, C was out of my control. Bill said this and Charlie said that…” And so on.
·         We face over-working people. It doesn’t matter one iota that we explicitly agreed that Bill would get 60% of Dave’s time and Charlie 40% - both Bill and Charlie will either behave as if they have 100% of Dave’s time and allocate work accordingly, or, if they do stick to the 60-40 split, they will expect their tasks to be completed first and will ignore and negative effects on the other’s agenda. It’s not their problem…
·         For all of these reasons (and more) it becomes harder and harder for people to commit to achieving things. Bill and Charlie might commit – and when they fail it’s clearly Dave’s fault(!) – but for Dave, how can he commit when he’s being pulled in two different directions, and has too much work to do anyway?!
·         If matrix management is being adopted to save headcount and cost, might it actually end up being more expensive in the long run as we face significant levels of missed deadlines (and longer deadlines, anyway), unengaged and unproductive staff, or – and this could be the biggest kicker! – a dramatic reduction in quality of output.

The cynics among you might also point out that all too often matrix management is driven by people who are NOT in a matrix structure, so they don’t actually see or really understand the effects adoption of this kind of ‘structure’ is having on those actually carrying out the work. (Dave’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown and is looking to leave the company, by the way..!)

But let’s face it, matrix management isn’t going away anytime soon. In order to meet the demands of complexity, multiple perspectives, ‘more for less’, having multiple reporting lines and workload streams will be a fact of life for some time to come. If that’s really the case, then what do we need to do to improve the effectiveness of working within this kind of structure? what do we need to be better at? Well here are some ideas…

Resource Management. At the end of the day, the core capability that we need to nail is how we manage our resources. It is anyway, but in a matrix situation it needs to be razor sharp.

Delegation. When we allocate a task to someone, we need to be truly explicit in the parameters of that task and what the desired deliverables are. Often we are too vague about the required output with the result that we over-shoot initial timescales.

Estimating. Both better resource management and improved delegation are intimately linked with better estimating. “5-10 days” is no longer a good enough answer in a pressured world where there is always something urgent next in the queue.

Commitment. On two fronts. Firstly from the Bill / Charlie end in terms of making a commitment that what they are asking for is actually what they really want – and they know it! – and that they will stick to their 60-40 deal and any agreed priorities. And secondly from the Dave end, who, having said “7 days” rather than “5-10 days”, is actually committed to hitting that estimate (i.e. accepting accountability).

Honesty and Integrity. All of these things only work if all parties are completely straight with each other. Build any element on sand or using ‘smoke and mirrors’, and the whole thing falls apart: “I said 7 days but I knew it would be 12…”; “I agreed to 60%, but I knew I’d need 75%...” etc.

Listening to Dave! And we must listen to Dave, the power of the doing resource. Most of the time they actually know what they are talking about – and far too often we ignore their input assuming it is being given for reasons of self-interest, self-protection and so forth.

Clearly these things are all intimately linked, and improving them will take time. But what can we practically consider doing in order to help us along? As ever, no silver bullets, but hopefully no blanks either!

·         Process undoubtedly plays a part, especially in areas such as Resource Management (RM) and Estimating. How good are your processes – really? – and where can they be improved? And this may mean simplified, don’t forget!
·         Good communication and reporting is key, between all parties concerned and along the entire journey of any task from estimate to progress tracking. Bill needs to have sight of how Dave’s work is progressing for Charlie, not because he has any direct interest in it, but because potentially he will be affected by any over-run. And the communication has to be effective. This doesn’t mean detailed, but rather something that is actually read / listened to and understood.
·         If you have a PMO (Project Management Office) function of some kind, this could be where some of this responsibility sits. They may already have a hand in resource management and reporting, so offer a natural home for any improvements. If you don’t have a PMO – and can’t see the need for or justify having one – then you will need to rely on your Project Managers and Team Leaders buying into any service improvement package (in terms of RM, process, comms and reporting).
·         Perhaps one of the most effective mechanisms to shift culture in this area (which is, after all, what we are talking about) is to change the reward mechanisms for your staff. Consider adopting some kind of ‘one fail, all fail’ approach. There are various ways you can achieve this through objectives or bonuses; for example, perhaps trying a scheme where part of Bill and Dave’s bonus is based on Charlie being successful, and vice versa.

Undoubtedly, there are many more levers that can be pulled to make Matrix Management operationally more effective, and turn it from a nice theory to something that actually works OK in the real world. How much of this you choose to disclose to or hide from your end customer will depend on your style and the ethos of your organisation. In theory they shouldn’t really care as long as you are delivering what they want and what you promise them – and making Matrix Management work just a little bit better should repay any investment you make.

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About the author / copyright

Ian Gouge is widely experienced in business-driven Information Technology, culminating in significant achievements majoring on organisational and process change, and with a proven track record in turning around / re-engineering IT functions. He possesses in-depth experience of change, transformation, IT delivery, customer and supplier engagement, and broad International exposure. Also the author of management books on the topics of IT strategy and project management, the impact on IT of e-business, and the IT organisation.

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