Management Structures

To whom it may concern, After researching all four organizational structures for our counseling center for victims of domestic abuse, I can say that this will be a tough decision to make. All four structures, departmentalization, matrix organizations, project team, and collegial model have their pros and cons. Since domestic abuse does not discriminate on age, gender or race, we have to choose wisely on how we will run our organization. Here are my findings:
• Departmentalization: o Pros: If a client needs legal services, they would just go straight to the legal department. This saves time of having a middle man and needing a referral. Since each team or unit will work independently, this helps our clients in having a subject-matter expert. For instance, the legal team, will focus strictly on the legal matters of the client, and ideally would not get in the way of any other aspect, such as their counseling and such. o Cons: Although the clients won’t have a hard time finding their specific needs, having so many people working with one person can cause issues with trust, which is exactly what we want to establish with each of them.
• Matrix Organization: o Pros: Since there are so many supervisors to help make decisions, decisions can be made with the whole team in mind. Although this can be a good thing a lot of the time, it can also backfire causing issues amongst supervisors. o Cons: Since there isn’t a specific authority, our employees and volunteers can become frustrated because of managerial problems. Who listens to whom today?

• The project team: o Pros: With this structure we can set up our clients more efficiently. A client will come in and be evaluated by their specific need. This will help by directing the client towards the next team, whether it is legal services, counseling, or shelter resources. o Cons: Our clients may feel as though they are dealing with a customer service call and just getting transferred to