Organisational Structures-Informal,Formal, Matrix based and Fuctional.

Key characteristics of the informal organization:

• evolving constantly

• grass roots

• dynamic and responsive

• excellent at motivation

• requires insider knowledge to be seen

• treats people as individuals

• flat and fluid

• cohered by trust and reciprocity

• difficult to pin down

• essential for situations that change quickly or are not yet fully understood .

Key characteristics of the formal organization:

• enduring, unless deliberately altered

• top-down

• missionary

• static

• excellent at alignment

• plain to see

• equates “person” with “role”

• hierarchical

• bound together by codified rules and order

• easily understood and explained

• critical for dealing with situations that are known and consistent .

Interesting characteristic of a FLAT Organization.

Flat organization (also known as horizontal organization) refers to an
organizational structure with few or no levels of intervening management
between staff and managers. The idea is that well-trained workers will
be more productive when they are more directly involved in the decision
making process, rather than closely supervised by many layers of
management.
This structure is generally possible only in smaller organizations or
individual units within larger organizations. When they reach a critical
size, organizations can retain a streamlined structure but cannot keep
a completely flat manager-to-staff relationship without impacting
productivity. Certain financial responsibilities may also require a
more conventional structure. Some theorize that flat organizations
become more traditionally hierarchical when they begin to be geared
towards productivity.

The flat organization model promotes employee involvement through
a decentralized decision making process. By elevating the level of
responsibility of baseline employees, and by eliminating layers of
middle management, comments and feedback reach all personnel
involved in decisions more quickly. Expected response to customer
feedback can thus become more rapid. Since the interaction between
workers is more frequent, this organizational structure generally
depends upon a much more personal relationship between workers
and managers. Hence the structure can be more time-consuming to
build than a traditional bureaucratic/hierarchical model.

MATRIX Management.

The matrix organization is an attempt to combine the advantages of
the pure functional structure and the product organizational structure.
This form is identically suited for companies, such as construction,
that are project-driven?.
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