PJM440 MOD8 Peer Responses to a Discussion Post
Please reply to both POST1: and POST2: in at least 250 words
Original post:
Consider functional, pure-project, and hybrid organizations. What is the role of top management in the implementation of total quality? What about middle management? Should they be different? Why or why not?
POST1:
Totally quality should not be the same for every organization. Each organization has a different culture and different vision so their quality management will vary. The role of top management is to be the leader of the organization. That being said, the term “leader†is broad and can be used as a title for several different people within the organization. As Goetsch & Davis (2014) state, all supervisors, managers, directors, vice presidents, and the CEO must be a leader but that doesn’t mean they necessarily know how to lead. The role of leaders or top management in total quality is to pull rather than push the group in which they are in charge of, understand where they want to go, set their vision, and get the organization on the right course to achieve that vision, are courageous and trustworthy, and helping others do their jobs with pride.
Although middle managers have a different role in total quality, their part is still very important. The middle managers deal with the processes, facilities, and equipment put in place by the higher management. Instead of developing the vision and objectives of the company like higher management, the middle managers initiate the culture change required by total management. Because they are more in control of the actual processes and ground level work, they also face the greatest obstacles and are harder to sell on the idea of total quality (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). It’s important to have both top and middle management to create a total quality environment so that top management can develop and define the processes while middle managers help to implement the process and lend their hand in other ideas.
References:
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence: introduction to total quality. Pearson.
POST2:
In functional organization is an organization that is compartmentalized into specialty areas. The role of top management is to be able to control their respective specialty unit, i.e. marketing department, sales department, etc. The role of middle management may be to control subgroups within that specialty department and report to the top of the management level of their respective department. They are different in authority because top management has the most influence of his respective department, while middle managers’ control is more limited to their subgroup (and even some of those decisions may need to be agreed upon by the top management).
Pure Project organizations have project managers assume ultimate control of a particular project. They are able to delegate tasks to whom they want in order to complete the respective project. The middle manager’s role is to make sure that the project manager’s wishes are executed properly. The roles of the project manager and the middle managers should be different if the project manager is highly experienced in coordinating a certain project and only needs individuals that are competent to complete the tasks required effectively.
Hybrid organizations have managers of different sectors, from private, public, and voluntary. It is a very unique structure that allows for top management to have their own respective sectors to manage, while middle managers can coordinate subgroups within those sectors. Their roles should be different in order to match their scope of influence and be able to better coordinate resources when possible to make sure that the organization is thriving overall.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence: introduction to total quality. Pearson.
