MANAGEMENT IN ORGANISATION ASSIGNMENT

Assignment - Management in Organization

Hi again

In my second blog, which is after a very long time, i am taking up the subject of Management in organisations. I am encouraged to do so due to the appreciation shown by readers to my first blog. I am going to explain the approach that a person can take towards the problems presented in the Assignment given for Management in organization.

Let us start by listing the problem.

Your company has bagged a lucrative contract to construct a housing colony for an Industrial Group to be located in Western Maharashtra in a coastal belt. You as a Project Manager have been asked by the company to evolve Organization Structure with following conditions.

    i. Organization should be as lean and thin as possible with bare minimum of personnel on company roll upto Junior Engineer level.

    ii. All supervisors to down below will be temporary for project duration only to be recruited locally from 10 km radius.

Suggest and discuss an organization structure denoting responsibility, authority, communication control for all facets of construction work and management functions as visualized by you.

Housing colony consists of 10 Bungalows for senior executives, 20 Apartments in five building, 100 dwellings for white collar workers and 300 dwellings for blue collared workers. Colony will have market and entertainment complex.

Before starting the assignment we need to understand some basic term and their functions of Organization mgmt. such as Business Enterprise, Entrepreneurship, Management and Organization etc because these terms are very important role in Organization Mgmt.

Understanding the project

The project requires developing an organization structure for the work of building a housing colony. Desirables for such project are:

1. Efficient use of resources; of material, personnel, time and money.
2. High level of quality.
3. Safety of workforce and other people
4. Environmental concern, minimum damage to the environment and utilization of efficient and environment friendly processes.

The scope of work includes the following:
i) The organization structure.
ii) Communication system which includes the reporting inside and outside the organization.
iii) Authority and litigation
iv) Motivation of the all employees at different levels of the organization
v) Training of employees, specially the unskilled labour. The different types of training incorporated.
vi) Recruitment ,application and selection of employees
vii) Monitoring and controlling each facet of the organization structure built up.

Selection of an appropriate organizational structure type: 

In the context of present project, it is important to identify an organizational structure which gives highest efficiency and ensures well being of employees at the same time. We shall discuss the following type of organizational structures and evaluate their merits and demerits. 

1. Pre-bureaucratic structures: The strategic leader makes all key decisions and most communication is done by one on one conversations. 

2. Bureaucratic structures: Precision, speed, un-ambiguity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs- these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration.
Characteristics of bureaucracy are:
· Clear defined roles and responsibilities
· A hierarchical structure
· Respect for merit. 

3. Post-bureaucratic: The post-bureaucratic organization, in which decisions are based on dialogue and consensus rather than authority and command, it is used in order to encourage participation and helps to empower people who normally experience oppression in groups. 

4. Functional structure: Employees within the functional divisions of an organization tend to perform a specialized set of tasks, for instance the engineering department would be staffed only with software engineers. This leads to operational efficiencies within that group. However it could also lead to a lack of communication between the functional groups within an organization, making the organization slow and inflexible. 

5. Divisional structure: Also called a "product structure", the divisional structure groups each organizational function into a division. Each division within a divisional structure contains all the necessary resources and functions within it. 

6. Matrix structure: The matrix structure groups employees by both function and product. This structure can combine the best of both separate structures. A matrix organization frequently uses teams of employees to accomplish work, in order to take advantage of the strengths, as well as make up for the weaknesses, of functional and decentralized forms.
· Weak/Functional Matrix: A project manager with only limited authority is assigned to oversee the cross- functional aspects of the project. The functional managers maintain control over their resources and project areas.
· Balanced/Functional Matrix: A project manager is assigned to oversee the project. Power is shared equally between the project manager and the functional managers. It brings the best aspects of functional and projectized organizations. However, this is the most difficult system to maintain as the sharing power is delicate proposition.
· Strong/Project Matrix: A project manager is primarily responsible for the project. Functional managers provide technical expertise and assign resources as needed. 

7. Team: One of the newest organizational structures developed in the 20th century is team. In small businesses, the team structure can define the entire organization. Teams can be both horizontal and vertical. Larger bureaucratic organizations can benefit from the flexibility of teams as well. 

8. Hierarchy-Community Phenotype Model of Organizational Structure: In the 21st century, even though most, if not all, organizations are not of a pure hierarchical structure, many managers are still blind-sided to the existence of the flat community structure within their organizations. The business firm is no longer just a place where people come to work. For most of the employees, the firm confers on them that sense of belonging and identity- the firm has become their “village”, their community. The business firm of the 21st century is not just a hierarchy which ensures maximum efficiency and profit; it is also the community where people belong to and grow together- where their affective and innovative needs are met.

Choosing a proper organizational type is very important, this aspect can be better understood by looking at the character of the construction industry.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Below are listed characteristics of the construction industry as it exists today. These characteristics have a meaning to the kind of managerial strategies that could be developed.
i) Construction is large industry of small firms.
ii) Construction industry is client oriented instead of production oriented
iii) Construction industry is primarily contracting. All relationships are contractual and exist during project life only.
iv) Entry into construction industry is easy due to lack of registration/licensing and low initial capital requirement.
v) Construction industry has inter-dependence between many heterogeneous disciplines and professions.
vi) Construction is labor intensive industry(in terms of role of labor)
vii) In construction industry product is first sold and then made.
viii) In construction industry each product made is unique. There is no repetitive work at all.
ix) In construction industry plant and machinery are not fixed. They move from site to site.
x) In construction industry work is seasonal, labor is casual and temporary, sub-contracting is common.
xi) In construction industry production is done at sites under natural/hazardous conditions. Safety is of paramount importance.
xii) In construction industry employment relations are contractual and of short duration and hiring is project based.
xiii) In construction industry unionization is difficult, unions are unstable, and unions are difficult to deal with.
xiv) Participants in construction are contractors, clients, government. They come together around project.
xv) Project-The project is the design and production of construction facility.

Therefore out of the listed types the Hierarchy-community phenotype model can be most beneficial for this project. This is because of the following reason:

• Need of quick decision making: Hierarchy is important so that the decision making powers can be clearly categorized. 
• Need for better communication: Also a flat type of organization leads to better communication. 
• Social involvement: In such projects the people are moved from the Headquarters in metropolitan cities to the project site. It is important for them to have a social life. This will increase the feeling of attachment and motivation. Lack of social life is one of the biggest de-motivator for engineers working on remote sites.

Selection of team size
The team size will depend on size of biggest work package. Therefore the scheduling will have to be done to create work packages of equal size, which will result in better resource leveling and efficiency.
The work performed by the organization involves a number of processes and sub processes,
the process model can be applied iteratively, by means of :
• Identifying inputs (from the output of the previous stage).
• Planning & Scheduling.
• Implementation.
• Monitoring.
• Recording.
• Improving.

Work breakdown structure:

Since habitation pattern of the colony can be predicted with some accuracy therefore the work package can be divided into following packages:
1st phase: Some Blue collar and white color employees will populate the colony: Therefore 50 white color dwelling and 200 blue collar dwelling will be taken up in phase 1.
2nd phase: 5 apartment buildings and 5 bunglows
3rd phas: 50 white color dwellings, 100 blue color dwellings and 5 bunglows.
This phasing will allow the same team to perform 3 similar tasks one after the another, thus reducing employee requirement by at least 66% which would otherwise be needed.

Site Organisation And The Team

Essentially a project for getting success needs a good responsible team. The team works with a goal of completing the project in time within the specified costs and quality specifications. To achieve the aforesaid goal, the work and responsibilities are divided within the team. The work management will be as per the chart showing the site organization team. The brief role and responsibilities of various personals involved in the project are as follows. 

Project Manager
He is appointed by the head office to look after the complete project. He is the head of the project team and is responsible for any act at site. He manages the entire construction process and is accountable to the client. He should get all site and head office related information.
 If any decision is needed the project manager would be the top most authority to give or arrange the answer of the decision. 

Project Co-Ordinator
The decisions at head office and the problems or demands at site are coordinated by the project coordinator. Project coordinator acts as a link between the project manager and site engineer. He should be very well aware of the work happening at site and the decisions taking place at head office. It would be his duty to provide the project information to project manager.

Executive Engineer
The key person and the head of the team working at site, is the Executive Engineer. He operates the complete work at site making use of the available resources and managing the workforce. Executive Engineer would be responsible for any work happening at site so it would be his duty to check and study the execution of work
Junior Engineer
Site engineer needs a proper team composed of engineers, supervisors and skilled and unskilled workforce at site. To share his workload he is accompanied by junior engineers who provide him all the details of the work asked by him. 

Foreman
A foreman is the leader of the workforce.
It would be his responsibility to communicate directly to the workforce. After getting approval of a drawing it would be the duty of the foreman to dictate the workers “what to do” and to check the work progress. In fact the foreman handles the labors.
Other teams
Other teams will also be required onsite such as MEP engineers, HR and recruitment, Design people and finance people.

Disclaimer:
This is just one way of looking at the problem given in the assignement. This example is given to provide clarity to the problem. In no way the given solution given here can be substituted for a formal submission. It is advised to all students to make independent effort to arrive at an innovative solution.