Matrix Management Workshops

In order to work effectively in a matrix, there are four areas that need to be addressed: structure, alignment, optimization and leadership. The horizontal or cross-functional dimension of the organization must take priority over the vertical dimension.

To do this, there must be a horizontal structure in addition to the vertical one. There must be alignment around the horizontal (around the customer). Business processes and projects must be optimized as these are the work processes that serve customers. The system of accountability and performance management must be rethought. Finally, the way we approach leadership must change.

In this full-day workshop we walk through the principles and practices that allow any organization to more effectively and efficiently satisfy customers. Participants learn how the matrix approach to managing an organization differs from the traditional, now obsolete model. This workshops explores both the underlying principles for making a matrix work as well as the required practices.

Participants are asked to identify problems in the organization associated with the old, vertical approach to managing. Then, as we walk through the principles and practices that make matrix management work, participants identify solutions to the problems they identified. Time permitting, participants also create a horizontal map of what the horizontal dimension of their organization look like.

Target Audience

Senior leaders and all levels of management

Length of Workshop

One-day
A two-day option includes application of the matrix principles to the client organization

Typical Agenda

AM

• Introductions
• The Old Vertical Model - Why it's obsolete
• Exercise - Identification of Organizational Issues
• Principles of Matrix Management - The theory and why it works
• Structuring the horizontal dimension - why a structure is needed, how to create one, how steering councils function, how does governance work in the horizontal dimension, how is strategy deployed down through the horizontal dimension
• Assessment Questions, Solutions to Organizational Issues
• Aligning the organization around the horizontal - goal setting, performance management, new accountability, partnership relationships (customer/supplier, boss/subordinate), applied accountability

PM

• Assessment Questions, Solutions to Organizational Issues
• Optimizing the organization - reducing complexity, effectiveness redefined, efficiency redefined, managing bottlenecks, project optimization, business process optimization
• Assessment Questions, Solutions to Organizational Issues
• Mapping the horizontal dimension
• Changes in leadership required in a matrix - collaborative leadership, collaborative methods, leading without authority, project leadership, issues of control
• Final Assessment Questions, Solutions to Organizational Issues

How do you create alignment across an organization?

How do you optimize the right things? How does a matrix work for business processes? for projects?

What changes are needed in leadership? in accountability? in performance management?

Prerequisites

None

Materials Provided

Workshop notebook