Matrix management

Matrix management is an organizational structure in which some individuals report to more than one supervisor or leader. Employees may report to a supervisor or leader via a solid line or a dotted line. More broadly, it may also describe the management of cross-functional, cross-business groups and other work models that do not maintain strict vertical business units or silos grouped by function and geography.

Matrix management, developed in U.S. aerospace in the 1950s, achieved wider adoption in the 1970s.

Overview

There are different types of matrix management, including strong, weak, and balanced, and there are hybrids between functional grouping and divisional or product structuring.

For example, by having staff in an engineering group who have marketing skills and who report to

both the engineering and the marketing hierarchy, an engineering-oriented company

produced "many ground-breaking computer systems." This is an example of cross-functional matrix management, and is not the same as when, in the 1980s, a department acquired PCs and hired programmers.

Often senior employees, these employees are part of a product-oriented project manager's team but also report to another boss in a functional department. A senior employee who may have worked previously for an advertising agency, designing ads for computers, may now be part of a marketing department at a computer company, but be working with an engineering group. This is often called cross-functional matrix management.

Companies that have multiple business units and international operations, upon closer inspection may apply matrix structures in different ways.