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it seems like the matrix form is alive and well in today's organizations - albeit having evolved from its early days. Why? Perhaps there is no bigger driver for the re-emergence of the matrix than organizations' increasing use of teams - virtual, project, cross-functional and global - to improve speed of delivery, customer responsiveness, cost concerns and productivity.

It wasn't that long ago-in the memory of most workers today-that people "went" to work. The work place was actually a "place" and people went there to earn a living. Some people still do. If you assemble circuit boards for Intel or automobiles for BMW, you will go to the place where the tools you need to do your job are kept. For the rest of us, a change has taken place that has fundamentally altered the way that work gets done. A typical project, for example, is planned in a series of meetings, launched in a rented conference room in an airport hotel, executed in who knows where, and managed using email and on-line tools. Sales meetings, to cite another example, take place on conference calls not in conference rooms.