Matirx organisational structures in organisations

When asked about some famous instances of matrix structures for a university management course and how have they fared; I immediately though about the macro task force for the Claremont serial murders.

Residing in Western Australia, the Claremont serial killer case dominated the news locally for years and at this time is still unsolved. In 1996, an 18 year old woman disappeared followed by another two disappearances later in 1996 and 1997 from the same location almost without leads despite extensive CCTV technology erected after the first disappearance.

The Western Australian Police Force (WAPOL) assembled a task force after the second attack, to be known as the macro task force. The task force was assembled with personnel from a number of police units to investigate the disappearance of the then two women, with a further third disappearance, who at this time has never been discovered is missing presumed deceased. The bodies of the second and third victims have been discovered.

A criticism of the formation of the macro task force was that a team needed to be assembled from scratch with unfamiliar team members from different units losing essential investigative opportunities when leads with still fresh. At the time, police funding cuts and force structure change did not allow smooth transition due to internal restructuring efforts to achieve organisational and cultural change. The macro task force could be considered a matrix structure; viewed in a similar style to a project team.

Since then, the major crime squad has been reformed in 1997 with personnel holding investigative, forensic and intelligence expertise and skills. The initial leader of the macro task force was also involved in the recent Lloyd Rayney murder trial (no conviction recorded) and the Iveta Mitchell disappearance, presumed murdered but unsolved. The macro task force has been subject to 11 internal and external probes with none reporting errors or oversights.