What characterizes Departmental Organization?

• A. Staff is organized into departments, each specializing in a different function; a project moves from one department to another.
• B. Projects are assigned to a single department from start to finish
• C. All staff work in isolation
• D. Authority is centralized with no departmental boundaries

Answer: (A)

Departmental organization groups staff into departments by function, with each department specializing in a different area of work. In this setup, a project is passed from one department to another as the different experts contribute their part through the project’s life cycle. That flow—functional specialization combined with cross-department collaboration as a project moves through phases—is the defining feature. So, describing a project as moving from one department to another captures how work is organized and coordinated in this structure. By contrast, assigning a project to a single department from start to finish would reflect a different approach where one unit handles all tasks, working more in isolation, and having no departmental boundaries or centralized authority without separation would erase the functional roles that departmental organization relies on.