How a Matrixed Organization/Corporate America Works

In this article, I primarily draw upon my experience as an engineer for Northrop Grumman Corporation to detail how matrixed organizations and corporate America operate. Before we get started, I would like to reference a few articles I have written that I think will greatly assist in bringing context to the overall discussion. 

The first article I would like to refer you to is “A Glance into the Aeronautics Systems Business Sector of NGC.” In this article, I provide a top to bottom insight of how the AS sector of NGC is organizationally structured. If you work for a large corporation, more than likely, you work for a specific business sector of that corporation that specializes in developing products for a specific industry. In the case of NGC’s Aeronautics Systems, this particular sector focuses on the design, development, production, maintenance, and/or sustainment of many manned and unmanned military aircraft.

The second article I would like to refer you to is “Team Structure of Engineering Programs in the Aviation Industry.” In this article, I detail the many engineering functions that typically make up engineering projects and programs. Projects and programs represent the lowest organizational unit of a sector that actually develop and deliver products to a customer. As an example, the Joint STARS aircraft is an Air Force platform that is in the sustainment phase of its life. Until a suitable replacement is allowed to be developed by Congress and the Air Force, JSTARS will continue to undergo significant modernization to ensure its performance is maintained and even increased. Through modernization programs/projects, the engineers detailed in the second article work together to deliver the required functionality and aircraft performance. In this case, the products delivered as part of the modernization programs and projects are tremendous amounts of hardware, software, systems, documentation, and training. When thinking about this from an organizational perspective, the engineers that support JSTARS work within Northrop Grumman’s Aeronautics Systems division, within the manned center of excellence, and in support of the C2ISR mission.

Now, to address the question of how matrixed organizations work, we will pick up where we left off in the previous paragraph. As we have now established, there are multiple levels to a corporation before you actually get to a product, and there are many different kinds of engineering/non-engineering personnel that oversee the development of those products. A corporation is made up of many personnel that support many programs and projects. These personnel generally fall into a specific area of competence, which is dependent upon their educational background and work experience. These areas of competence, many of which were detailed in the second article, are known as functional homerooms or departments. 

One of the primary responsibilities of the functional homerooms is to oversee the distribution of their engineers to the multiple programs that are being executed at any given time. Functional homeroom managers are generally responsible for conducting mid/end of year reviews, handling promotions and raises, handling improvement plans (if necessary), and most importantly, staffing their direct reports on programs. With the latter being stated, functional managers stay up to date, and “in the know” about the staffing requirements for current and future programs being executed throughout the organization.

Just as corporations have multiple organizational levels (detailed in the first article), so does functional management. The lowest level functional managers (level 1) oversee the lowest levels of engineering and program personnel (non-managerial personnel; the people who actually execute the engineering programs to produce and deliver the products). At this level, and depending on the size of a facility or particular organization, a single level 1 functional homeroom manager may oversee 10 to 20 employees, also known as direct reports. 

More often than not, level 1 functional managers not only have functional management responsibilities, but also execute tasks on engineering programs as well. In many instances, level 1 functional managers work on the same programs as their direct reports, and even execute similar tasks to their direct reports; however, functional managers are oftentimes not responsible for assigning programmatic work to their direct reports, as this is usually the task of the engineering/program managers that oversee the execution of platform level programs and projects. The engineering/program manager is oftentimes referred to as the assignment manager, and it is in this situation where the term matrixed organization can truly be defined. Although you may directly report up to a specific person in terms of functional homeroom assignment, that person may not be on the same program as you, and will most likely not be the person actually assigning you work. In many instances, your only interactions with a functional manager may only be on a functional basis: for mid/end of year reviews, promotions/raises, and for staffing purposes. You may only see your functional manager a few times a year, while you see your assignment managers on a daily basis. You will only have one functional manager, where you may have many assignment managers on multiple programs, and on multiple platforms. Although the assignment manager is rarely ever the same as your functional manager, the assignment usually has a direct impact on your daily activities, your mid/year end reviews, and even promotional status.

Getting back to functional homeroom levels, level 1 functional managers report up to another level of functional managers (level 2). In essence, level 2 functional managers are managers of managers. Level 2 managers report up to level 3 managers, that solely manage level 2 managers. This hierarchy of managers that oversee managers that oversee non-managerial personnel is what is known as the corporate ladder. At the top of the ladder is the CEO, and at the bottom of the ladder are the personnel that execute the programs to deliver the products. Although I left out the descriptions of a few rungs on the corporate ladder, you hopefully get the idea. The general trend is as you climb the ladder, the number of managers usually decreases, the number of direct reports usually decreases, and the further removed you become from direct program execution. Significant shifts in responsibilities also occur as you traverse the corporate ladder. At the lowest levels of management, managers are primarily concerned with staffing for program execution, while at the highest levels of management, the concern shifts to making money for the company.

Let’s tie everything together with a real world example starting from the top. In my case, I have an electrical engineering educational background, and have work experience in the avionics industry. I work as an engineer within the AS sector of Northrop Grumman. I initially fell into the Electronics and Payloads (E&P) functional homeroom, also known as the avionics group. In this position, I helped integrate avionics systems onto the Joint STARS aircraft as part of multiple modernization efforts. To learn more about the responsibilities and duties I had as an avionics engineer in this position, check out my article here. As described in the second article, I was part of a team of many different engineers that supported these modernization projects for JSTARS. Although we were part of many different functional homerooms, and had individual functional managers, we all reported up the engineering chain of command for the programs we worked on. I also worked on multiple non-modernization programs for Joint STARS, and even worked on other platforms outside of Joint STARS. Due to the variation of programs I supported, I reported up to many assignment managers, while still only maintaining one functional manager.