Rethinking Matrix Organization
Rethinking a matrix organisation means mapping which decisions actually stall under dual reporting lines and giving each of those a single point of authority, rather than adding more process to a structure that is confusing people.
Five steps carry a stalled decision from the org chart to a single named owner, without a full reorg.
Reach for this when…
- Two managers both claim ownership of the same decision and both are technically right.
- Work stalls waiting for sign-off from both sides of the matrix.
- People have stopped escalating conflicts because it takes too long to resolve them.
How to run it
- List the decisions that regularly stall, not the org chart boxes.
- Trace each stalled decision to where the dual line actually sits.
- Assign single-point authority for decisions that don't need two sign-offs.
- Keep genuine dual ownership only where both sides carry real, different risk.
- Test the change against a live decision within weeks, not the next reorg.
A worked example
Situation. Ingrid Haugen led product management at Fjord Engineering, a components manufacturer in Bergen, Norway, where pricing quotes were taking six weeks because product managers and regional sales heads both believed they had final say.
Applied. She didn't redraw the matrix. She listed the decisions that were actually stalling, found pricing was the only one where dual sign-off added nothing but delay, and gave regional sales heads sole authority on quotes under a set threshold.
Result. Quote turnaround dropped to days. The remaining escalations were real disagreements about strategy, not confusion about who got to decide.
The catch
This only fixes the decisions you actually audit - leave half the matrix unexamined and the same stalling pattern will resurface somewhere else within a year. It also requires someone senior enough to reassign authority and make it stick, which is often the person who benefits from the ambiguity staying as it is.
If nobody can name the three decisions that are actually stalling, you don't have a matrix problem yet - you have a diagnosis problem.