Matrix management does not work for all groups. It definitely does not work in the engineering groups at Qualcomm ..not in most Sw groups.... Specially during review cycles, there are huge conflicts between personal goals, and managements goals and having different managers (disfunctional at best at Q) is very demotivating to employees.
The review process sucks at Q. First off having a line manger (lame duck) who knows nothing about what you do and how critical is your role or contributions made, is a joke. This lame duck manager rarely has any presentation or marketting skils (to say the least) to market the managee and sell his/her accomplishment at the review board. Sometimes they don't even talk vociferously on behalf of the employee being reviewed due to politics and self interest of preserving relationship with the idiotic good for nothing (sr) directors in the review board.
Further more having this clueless lame duck collect information from folks and present it to a bunch of bloated so called "Directors", 60 % percent of whom have no clue about who is being talked about and the rest 40% who barely know the person has agendas. Having these Idiots make a decision on the promotion/raise/bonus is simply ridiculous and utterly unfair
The process should have been fixed years ago. No point in having some directors to whom the employee is not directly accountable to, makes decisions that impact the employees career growth. Why not follow the other companies like MSFT, DELL and do away with this kind of management and 360 review process. Have the Lead of the group be a real line manager and decide on the promotion/raise/bonus that his team members deserve. Who else can make such a call fairly (as fair as it can be). Allocate a budget for each lead and have them manage their own team members career progress based on his accomplishments/contributions... After all the employee is directly accountable to his lead..
Please get rid of so many non-sensical, good for nothing (sr) directors and take this power away that they are so hopped up on... "i am director and i can make calls that can ruin your career, so give my project the priority and jump when i ask... else review period is right around the corner" Ridiculous!!!!