Organizational structures used in software development by the U.S. aerospace industry

Abstract

The U.S. aerospace industry is generally credited with developing the engineering project to the degree to which it is used today. In the 1950s, the development of large systems was accomplished primarily by project organization. Later in the 1960s and 1970s, matrix organization began to replace project organization as a means of obtaining maximum use of scarce personnel resources. In an attempt to find out more about the organizational structures used in the U.S. aerospace industry, a survey was conducted of a selected sample of the industry. This article, reporting on the results of that survey, shows that 38% of software developments are accomplished by project organization, 58% by matrix organization, and 4% by functional organization. Other organizational structures are identified and reported. A comparison is made between selected variables denoting project information and organizational type.