Spela TrefaltAssociate Professor| Simmons University, School of BusinessMa, United States
In general, I get the difference between operations and projects. Projects are temporary, operations are ongoing. But how about in organizations that complete projects on regular, ongoing basis, as part of their operations (design firms, consulting firms, ....)? It seems that their operations ARE projects. How do you think about the difference between projects and operations in project-based settings? Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Spela
it could be that project based companies spend 90% or more of their effort on projects.
Still they may have operations like sales, marketing, IT, finance. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
In my personal experience, mainly in the last years, I see (and I live) that some things that could be considered operation are run as projects. For example, technical refresh of hardware because technical obsolescence. Between other things, I saw organizations doing that because the level of risk those "operations" have inside and in some point each iteration have a duration. Saving Changes...
Paul DeresVice President, Operations| AOPA Air Safety InstituteFrederick, Md, United States
I think you captured it correctly by saying that operations ARE projects. That's how it is where I work: Our main efforts focus on creating safety education videos, publications, podcasts, and other materials for pilots all year, every year, so it never ends. We're a nonprofit, so we often use the words "help fund our operations" (i.e., our projects) in our donor correspondence. Saving Changes...
In my field, software and data, projects often come and go but frequently there is no difference at all in the way the software products are built regardless of whether you call that work a project or not. It's probably the case that most software development gets done outside of any project. Arguably most software development "projects" are unnecessary and may be a distraction from the work of creating and improving software. Saving Changes...
Operations often contain many projects. For example, I work at a large technology and manufacturing firm that has an engineering unit, and a production unit. Within both, we perform regular repeatable work which we would call operations.
Product and process improvements, expansion or retirement of product related activities, error resolution, and other efforts of limited duration are still projects that may address the products themselves, or the processes used throughout the operations flows. Even in a PMO office, the regular activities like running the change board of potential and ongoing projects is operations because the activity is ongoing despite projects entering and leaving to process pipeline. The people presenting activities of limited scope and duration to the change board are working projects.
Sometimes we refer to the operations and related infrastructure as "enabling architecture" rather than operations. PMI refers to that as organizational process assets, and although those assets support projects, projects are also used to change the assets themselves. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
I don't see a need to determine if an initiative or activity is a "project" or an "operation". Maybe it can be both. The intent is to find the best way to manage what it is that we are trying to achieve. One should look at all available management tools and select what will best achieve the objective. Once you have labelled something - say "a project" - then you feel constrained to apply project management thinking. Yet there may be advantages to operational thinking.
Some will argue that a project is defined as a unique (non repeatable) initiative/deliverable with a beginning and an end. My response is that pretty well everything we do has a beginning and an end and that nothing is 100% unique (lucky if its 10% unique).. Project management has a very high component of repeatability - not only within itself but with earlier projects..
Bottom line: don't worry about labelling the initiative, put energy in finding the best way to deliver.
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3 replies by David Portas, Keith Novak, and Paul Deres
Jul 15, 2021 7:31 PM
Paul Deres
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Well said, Peter!
Jul 16, 2021 3:35 AM
David Portas
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Very well put. I totally agree.
One of the big problems (or differences if you prefer) with project thinking is the tendency to think in terms of "scope" rather than priorities. In operational terms scope is mostly irrelevant; priorities are everything.
Jul 16, 2021 12:47 PM
Keith Novak
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Despite the labeling aspect, Operations vs. Projects can make a significant difference in terms of what might be called Organizational Intelligence which I find can be very important to a PM. It speaks to the culture of the organization, and navigating that culture is very important in our job roles.
Businesses focused on operations want to limit change and disruption. Projects by nature cause disruption, albeit in a positive and carefully controlled way. PMs are essentially agents of constructive disruption.
I got into PM as one of the few people in a largely "operationalized" organization, willing to take on the new challenges while most people want a very predictable day where they work mostly independently at their own computer terminal. Understanding that culture is key to navigating the organization. There are some people who are responsive and comfortable with change, but the majority look at the PM as the pebble in their shoe that they would rather do without. Understanding the operations vs. project culture helps me understand how to deal with the people assigned to my project. The people who avoid change aren't going to react the same way as the people who enjoy change.
Similarly, when I'm changing jobs, I want to make sure it's a good fit for me, so I need to understand the organization. An operations focused org is generally more a functional org chart rather than a projectized one. Having a discussion prior to hiring about operations vs. project oriented environment, may be very important in figuring out whether or not I'm a good fit for the job opening, while speaking a common language. A PM in an operations environment is the one generally adding chaos to the established order. A PM in a product development environment is generally trying to create order out of chaos. Of course we try to find the best way to do the job, but I find it helpful to understand the organization before deciding on the "best" way to achieve the goals.
Saving Changes...
Paul DeresVice President, Operations| AOPA Air Safety InstituteFrederick, Md, United States
Jul 15, 2021 7:29 PM
Replying to Peter Rapin
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I don't see a need to determine if an initiative or activity is a "project" or an "operation". Maybe it can be both. The intent is to find the best way to manage what it is that we are trying to achieve. One should look at all available management tools and select what will best achieve the objective. Once you have labelled something - say "a project" - then you feel constrained to apply project management thinking. Yet there may be advantages to operational thinking.
Some will argue that a project is defined as a unique (non repeatable) initiative/deliverable with a beginning and an end. My response is that pretty well everything we do has a beginning and an end and that nothing is 100% unique (lucky if its 10% unique).. Project management has a very high component of repeatability - not only within itself but with earlier projects..
Bottom line: don't worry about labelling the initiative, put energy in finding the best way to deliver.
I don't see a need to determine if an initiative or activity is a "project" or an "operation". Maybe it can be both. The intent is to find the best way to manage what it is that we are trying to achieve. One should look at all available management tools and select what will best achieve the objective. Once you have labelled something - say "a project" - then you feel constrained to apply project management thinking. Yet there may be advantages to operational thinking.
Some will argue that a project is defined as a unique (non repeatable) initiative/deliverable with a beginning and an end. My response is that pretty well everything we do has a beginning and an end and that nothing is 100% unique (lucky if its 10% unique).. Project management has a very high component of repeatability - not only within itself but with earlier projects..
Bottom line: don't worry about labelling the initiative, put energy in finding the best way to deliver.
Very well put. I totally agree.
One of the big problems (or differences if you prefer) with project thinking is the tendency to think in terms of "scope" rather than priorities. In operational terms scope is mostly irrelevant; priorities are everything. Saving Changes...
Teodora TodorovaIT Project Manager| INDUSTRIA TechnologySofia, Bulgaria
Spela,
Do you have a particular situation where you need to make it clear if this imitative is a project or operations?
I work with a few big clients in my firm and we have an ongoing contracts with them for specific services (we have a clearly defined scope there) and we are billing them on monthly basis. It is on ongoing project, this is what we call these.
Very often these same clients need additional services - an enhancement of an existing functionality for example, so we initiate a small project to deliver it - it has a separate team to work on, separate budget and so on, But internally we call these change requests.
And this process may not make compete sense for a person outside because it is a custom one created for these specific clients.
It really doesn't matter what it is called but what is the process behind it and if this process works both for the firm and the client. Saving Changes...
Shivanjali BhutkarBringing Technology and Business togetherNa, Ca, United States
Projects have start and end time. Operations are on going activities. Operations may have projects too. Saving Changes...
