Conference 7.286::digital

    How to work w/in a Matrix Management system?  My rule is that if
    someone has the title manager, you have to do what they ask you
    to (this gets around whether you are dotted line or solid line or
    no line related), of course this can get hectic at times....:-)

    My only comment to "Matrix Management" is that it leaves an awful
    lot of holes which nobody owns!
    
    Mike

    Good cover for the study, a scene from "CPU wars" cartoon.
    IPM trooper asks a decie at the gun point " Who is your manager",
    poor soul starts to recite a search list...

    						w
                                       

    I'll be very interested in seeing your paper...the secret to the
    matrix is that there is NO HANDBOOK...if you don't know the rules...
    you make them up!
    
    /tb/
    

    "If my manager calls, be sure to get his name."

    Do you have a copy of Reesa's "DIGITAL CULTURE" white papers?
    They "subjectively" describe some aspects of performing within
    the context of a "matrix" management situation.
    
    Also,  Pinchot's "Intrapreneurship" has some references to flourishing
    under matrix management.
    
    I wrote my master's thesis on Intrapreneurship within Digital. 
    My study area attempted to analyze the "communications" factors
    impacting Intrpareneurship within DEC.  Although I failed to "prove"
    my thesis (Technically, I failed to disprove the "null" hypothesis),
    I believe that matrix management provides "loop holes" for
    Intrapreneurs.
    
    Have fun!
    
    Tim B

    I think matrix management is useful in small companies, but breaks down
    in large companies. In a small company, everyone is marching toward the
    same goals (making profits of some product line or service). In a large
    company, there's dozens of kinds of products and services. The result
    is that it's difficult to get buy-in from a group that has different
    goals and priorities. Much more time is spent trying to find groups
    with complementary goals, convincing them to work with you, etc.,
    than in a small company. The increased time overhead requires more
    personnel for coordination and buy-in -- reducing profits. And the
    increased time overhead means slower time to market.
    
    Some business analysts say Digital is management top heavy. The
    overhead of matrix management is a major reason.
    
    -George

    I seem to remember from the book "In Search of Excellence" sp?
    that was given to me by a person in Digital when I hired on,
    The author's views were basicaly that matrix management does NOT
    work. They go on to give views to back this statement and thier
    reasoning. Good reading material that I would highly recomend to
    everyone in this company.
    					Ted
    

    Stanley Davis, Paul Lawrence, _Matrix_, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,
    1977
    
    Stanley Davis coined the term and it fit Digital at the time.  This was
    the highest point of popularity of "product lines" as Digital.
    
    It its pure form a matrix manager is either "functional" (managing
    people with similar skill sets for many results), or "product/service"
    (managing specialists from different functional groups for a specific
    result).
    
    We've milked this conceptually for all it's worth.  In reality, managers
    today speak of "tincupping" and "empire building", saying "matrix"
    triggers a cynical response.
    
    The faith that made this work 12 years ago is gone with the wind today.

>    The faith that made this work 12 years ago is gone with the wind today.

Thanks goodness.  Yesterday's solution today is not what we need.

- greg

    Faith, or if you prefer, confidence, that the company was doing the
    right thing existed 12 years ago is gone with the wind.
    
    Then the company had a vision but didn't need to call it a "vision"
    because it was internalized in 40 or 50 thousand employees and acted on
    every day.
    
    Today, every speech and piece of internal company communications
    discusses the need for a vision, so the word is in front of us.
    
    I don't know if there's no vision, or 20 of them do you? 

>    I don't know if there's no vision, or 20 of them do you? 

No.  I share your feeling.  But I also believe that the internalized
vision of which you spoke is no longer the best choice.  When DEC
was a company of engineers serving engineers internalization was both
reasonable and successful.

Now we wish to expand to commercial markets that have different
attitudes and expectations about computing.  I think that both
internalization and matrix management are less appropriate to those
markets than they were to the markets of the past.

Also, standards, internationalization, and openess are new elements
that must be accomodated.  (We've perhaps gone a little overboard,
but so what else is new about human nature's pendulums?).

I trust the competence of the engineers (including myself) just
as much, or more, than ever.  But I don't trust their end-user
instincts as much.  We have the instincts of engineers, not the
instincts of DP managers; the user-interface tastes of engineers,
not the user-interface tastes of office-workers and non-DP pro-
fessionals.

At this particular juncture in the company's  history I believe
that simple understanding of our users (and especially our non-
users, ie., IBM customers) is more important than vision.  The
latter remains one of the top three-five priorities, but I don't
believe it is the most important today, nor the solution to our
immediate problems.

Vision, of course, must remain the byword of three-years-out and
farther.  But we've some really immediate problems in the way we
conduct our business that need fixing yesterday in order to move
forward and regain or maintain the growth, health, and robustness
we need to achieve our goals.

- greg

    "Matrix management" is still with us.  Its the magic word we chant when
    someone complains about not having the resources needed to do his job
    or wonders why he's reporting to 3 people.
    
    -dave bowers

    A short article has appeared in the Harvard Business Review "Matrix
    Management: Not a Structure, a Frame of Mind" by Bartleyy and Ghoshal.
    July 1990.
    
    A point made in the article is that elaborate and bureaucratic matrix
    organizations impair the ability to implement enterprise-wide
    strategies.  Digital is not mentioned in the article.