MATRIX ORGANISATION AT THE EEC
The EEC has organised its Core Business in a
matrix-like manner for several
years now and more recently the matrix has been extended to the Support
Services, thus covering the whole Centre.
ROOM
FOR IMPROVEMENT AND CONCLUSIONS
BENEFITS 1
HOW IT WORKS 2
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT AND CONCLUSIONS 4
BENEFITS
What are the benefits we expect from
this type of organisation?
There is wide agreement amongst managers of
human resources that staff mobility
is an important means to:
-
improve
individual motivation
-
increase
job satisfaction
-
enhance
and evolve the organisation’s pool of available expertise and knowledge, thus
making the organisation more flexible
Since the introduction of the matrix
organisation to the EEC Core Business, we have observed a significant increase
in mobility. According to our own analysis, this increase is due to the fact
that there are dedicated people managers – Heads of Centre of Expertise as we
call them. Their role is different from that of Project and Business Managers,
who are responsible for the projects and programmes.
Having dedicated people managers has, not
surprisingly, another positive effect: the improvement
of classic people management such as career planning. On the other hand, it
allows Project Managers and Business Managers to concentrate on the achievement
of their objectives. It is interesting to note that this distribution of roles
suits the majority of managers, since they often prefer one role to the other.
Another typical goal of the matrix organisation
paradigm is a better sharing of skills
and competencies across the different Projects, Business Areas and Business
Enablers. This is definitely favoured by a matrix-like structure rather than by
a one-dimensional organisation where sharing of skills and resources is not
natural.
Anticipation of future
skill needs is
necessary for efficiently managing staff training, and for deciding how the necessary
resources can be guaranteed, through re-allocation of staff across the matrix,
or by recruitment.
Last, but not least, the matrix organisation
has the advantage of easing quick
restructuring to match continuously changing business needs. No Without doubt this is an
essential characteristic of the Experimental Centre where quick adaptation is
of overall importance.
The list of benefits I have just been describingdescribed above is far from
being exhaustive but I prefer to stop here andit is preferable to move on
to explain how theory is actually being transformed into practice…
HOW IT WORKS
What does the EEC organisation look
like?
It is a relatively simple two-dimensional
matrix: on the vertical axis we have the six Centres of Expertise. These
are responsible for people management and for the development of expertise and
methodology in their respective domains. To give an example: DAI (which stands
for “Development and Integration”) is home to all EEC staff whose main skill is
in the software domain.
On the horizontal axis we have six Business
Areas corresponding to the Core Business and also a set of Business Enablers
corresponding to the Support. This is where the responsibility for projects and
enabling services lies. For instance the Business Enabler Human Resources
Management provides all services related to human resources such as
recruitment, training management and staff management.
Very briefly: how does it work? Let’s assume a
Business Area Manager or Business Enabler Manager needs a resource with some
software skill. He/She has to issue a request to the corresponding Head of
Centre of Expertise who is, in this example, is the Head of DAI. And now - without going into
the details of the procedure - the Head of DAI decides whether he can
temporarily assign or not, one of his/her staff to the Business Area or
Business Enabler. Once the staff member has finished his work package he/she
becomes free again for a new assignment.
It is important to note that there is no border
between Core Business and the Support: For example a staff member belonging to
DAI may be temporarily assigned half-time to a work package which is under the
responsibility of one of the Business Areas and half-time to a work package for
a service to be provided by a Business Enabler.
What are precisely the roles and
responsibilities of the Heads of Centre of Expertise, the Business Area Managers
and Business Enabler Managers?
Business Area and Business Enabler Managers are
entirely responsible for:
-
achieving
the objectives of their Business Area/Enabler in accordance with the EEC
Business Plan,
-
the
internal organisation of their organisational unit,
-
and
for the management of their budgets.
Business Area Managers are frequently in
contact with their EEC-external stakeholders and they promote their activities
whereas the Business Enabler Manager’s role is to provide the services required
by the Business Areas and the whole EEC in the achievement of their objectives.
The role and responsibilities of the Heads of
Centre of Expertise include:
-
career
development of staff,
-
participation
in skill and staff plan management,
-
decision
making on staff allocation,
-
recruitment
(post description, selection jury and interview board),
-
production
of Individual Training Plans as well as the EEC Training Plan,
-
and
the responsibility for their staff’s performance appraisal.
As already pointed out, the Centres of
Expertise are also responsible for the development of Expertise and Methodology
in their respective domains.
One such example of this is the ASC Centre
of Expertise, home to the scientific staff, which is developing expertise in
Safety, Validation and the Human Factors Laboratory.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT AND CONCLUSIONS
All in all the matrix organisation in place
works in a satisfactory manner. The matrix organisation is more complicated than
the traditional one-dimensional hierarchical organisation. It is therefore not
obvious for all staff to immediately understand the new organisation. A certain
amount of pedagogical effort and time is needed to make it work. The usual
strategy for change management applies: identify change agents, explain and
listen, adapt, etc… The timing is also important: the momentum must be
maintained and the process must be managed at the right pace, not too fast and
not too slow.
Nevertheless we recognise that not everything
is perfect and that there is still some room for improvement…
Two of the problems we have identified:
1)
We
have not fully succeeded in the dissemination and systematic use of the
expertise available in the Centres of Expertise. To tackle this problem we
decided to reinforce project reviews with the regular participation of the
Centres of Expertise.
2) There is a tendency for Project Managers to
hire contractors rather than using available staff. One reason seems to be that
it is easier to hire a contractor who has exactly the required skills rather
than using an available staff member who in some cases needs some training
prior to the assignment. To remedy this we changed our procedure for issuing
TRS (Task Requirements Sheet). The revised procedure includes now the
participation of the Heads of Centre of Expertise.
Despite some remaining inefficiency, most of us
consider the matrix organisation as a success. It is definitely well adapted to
the needs of the EEC. For a large majority of the EEC staff it would be
difficult to imagine going back to the old hierarchical system…
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