Case Study – JONES AND SHEPHARD ACCOUNTANTS, INC.

By 1970, Jones and Shephard Accountants, Inc. (J&S) was ranked eighteenth in size by the American Association of Accountants. In order to compete with the larger firms, J&S formed an Information Services Division designed primarily for studies and analyses.

TRANSITIONAL MANAGEMENT

Why have some companies been able to implement this change in a short period of time while other companies require years? The answer is that successful implementation requires good transitional management.

STRATEGIC BUSINESS UNIT (SBU) PROJECT MANAGEMENT

During the past ten years, large companies have restructured into strategic business units (SBUs). An SBU is a grouping of functional units that have the responsibility for profit (or loss) of part of the organization’s core businesses

STRUCTURING THE SMALL COMPANY

Small and medium companies generally prefer to have the project manager report fairly high up in the chain of command, even though the project manager may be working on a relatively low-priority project.

SELECTING THE ORGANIZATIONAL FORM

Project management has matured as an outgrowth of the need to develop and produce complex and/or large projects in the shortest possible time, within anticipated cost, with required reliability and performance, and (when applicable) to realize a profit.

MATRIX LAYERING

Matrix layering can be defined as the creation of one matrix within a second matrix. For example, a company can have a total company matrix, and each division or department (i.e., project engineering) can have its own internalized matrix. In the situation of a matrix within a matrix, all matrices are formal operations.

CENTER FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT EXPERTISE

In project-driven companies, the creation of a project management division is readily accepted as a necessity to conduct business.

MODIFICATION OF MATRIX STRUCTURES

The matrix can take many forms, but there are basically three common varieties. Each type represents a different degree of authority attributed to the program manager and indirectly identifies the relative size of the matrix structures company.

MATRIX ORGANIZATIONAL FORM

The matrix organizational form is an attempt to combine the advantages of the pure functional structure and the product organizational structure.

Successful project management

PURE PRODUCT (PROJECTIZED) ORGANIZATION

The pure product organization, develops as a division within a division. As long as there exists a continuous flow of projects