This paper is a snippet from a wider analysis of Engineering Management within three major defence contractors. I’ve removed all the proprietary information because I don’t have explicit approval to publically share this information; besides all the interesting observations are contained within the analysis which I’ve included here.

Executive Summary

Morgan’s Organizational models are leveraged to provide an alternative organizational model based on a modification of the traditional matrix organization model.

Meeting Management Best Practice

The author has experienced a number of initiatives related to efficient meetings with previous employers which demonstrate best practice in meeting management and facilitation.¹ DaimlerChrysler mandated weekly reviews for all platform product lines. These reviews would be arranged around the full vehicle model displayed on screen with all technical and often non technical stakeholders present. All traffic light issues that were red or yellow were discussed and actioned from this meeting. In 3 years with DaimlerChrysler the author rarely experienced a paper based review. This method resulted in over 1300 vehicle variants per year from the smallest engineering team in any of the American automotive manufacturers. Mitsubishi Australia even introduced mandatory efficient meeting training for all supervisors and above and a locked door policy for late attendees to break the ineffective meeting culture.

The author acts as a mentor to the University of Adelaide Formula SAE (FSAE) team. At the preliminary design review on 28 March 2008 the review was conducted around the virtual solid model of the race car. During the hour long review each functional team lead and his staff spoke about their design and how it integrated into the vehicle as a whole while the model manager rotated, zoomed and sectioned the model to show the relevant vehicle systems. This led to healthy debate and probing by the reviewers to ensure that the designers and testers were ready to commence production and subsystem testing prior to full system optimization. This was an excellent demonstration of a collaborative review.

The defence industry in Australia continues to favour inefficient paper based reviews. These reviews make it incredibly difficult to understand the interactions and interfaces of the system and tend to focus on components or discreet functional areas.

Most meeting rooms at Defence contractors are in a state of disrepair with cables strewn about the room and completely ineffective human factors layouts. This is a clear sign of a poor meeting culture. Where the author has experienced efficient meeting cultures the audio-visual rooms are well equipped and logically arranged. Businesses with good meeting cultures take pride in their meeting rooms.

Alternative Organizational Models

The traditional organizational structure as a machine is at odds with a transition into the knowledge economy. Traditional organizations generally conform to Fayol’s Principles of Management². New and emerging businesses, such as Google, Atlassian³ and others are abandoning the machine model of the organization for something more akin to a brain model. The brain model requires the organization to self regulate to maintain a steady state.⁴ The machine model tends to stifle innovation just when it is needed to cope with the actual and perceived demands of both internal and external customers.

So how can we combine multiple organizational models into existing defence businesses to both maintain our strengths and address our weaknesses? The matrix organization attempts to do this by clearly distinguishing between our 'day jobs' or line role and our functional role. One Defence contractor is attempting to address functional resource issues by demanding that all grade 8 level salaried employees and above contribute to the function as reflected in their Performance Development Review (PDR). What is lacking is the cultural and social changes necessary to make this initiative happen naturally without centralized control. Will we just see more process and updates to process and use this metric to deem this initiative successful? Or will we look deeper and attempt to understand whether the employees are happier?

Perhaps the functional role can be adapted around a Brain organization that allows innovation to occur without the constraints of the Machine line organization. Another Defence Contractor has their R&D organization separate from their core business. The Chrysler Division of DaimlerChrysler, renowned for their innovation, has Centers[sic] of Competency staffed by specialist engineers and scientists to assist the line organization anywhere in the life cycle. These Centers of Competency are expected to maintain the company's edge over its competitors through innovation without being bound by the delivery constraints of their platform counterparts.⁵ This model was akin to Quinn's⁶ observation of skunkworks. He observed that it was like raising a healthy child. A mother (champion), father (authority figure with resources) and pediatricians (specialists) were needed to support it.

Single Model of the Business

Finally, discuss the possibility of designing, in a single company, a combination of organizational and management structure and culture that would best suit all (or most of) the above scenarios that typify the engineering management environment.

There is clearly a need to move defence organizations from their current inefficient Machine like structures to a combination of knowledge and traditional matrix organizations. Figures 26 and 27 describe the characteristics required to maintain the traditional defence organization focused on delivering products and services while Figure 25 describes the characteristics required to be innovative that would suit a functional metamorphosis in the familiar matrix structure, Figure 28. This alternative matrix model requires a more significant contribution from the traditional functional entities. This allows a combination of agile development to coexist with the embedded waterfall model of solution development. The Chrysler Division of DaimlerChrysler⁷ is a good example of how a large complex product development company can act agile and respond quickly to customer demands.

References

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