Operations management and project management often have substantial overlap in activities and methods. However, one key distinction is that “operations” typically represent ongoing or repeated activities (such as running a factory or a manufacturing line within a factory), while “projects” are temporary and finite (such as conducting a research study on whether the factory should make a particular new product). See, e.g., https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/project-management-vs-operations-management/. (I used to work at a consulting firm where there were many project managers running short-term research or software-development projects for clients, and a few operations managers responsible for continual business functions such as invoicing clients and paying employees of the consulting firm.)
Right, other ways I’ve heard this described is operations is Business as Usual (BAU) and projects have a start date and end date. I’ve seen this important distinction when it comes to budgeting as BAU will be funded first with a certain % uplift of last year’s spend. Project costs tend to be more of a stab in the dark as it will be something that hasn’t been done in this iteration before (e.g. this location or population segment) and whatever will fit in the remaining budget plays a large selection factor.
Now programs....that’s like having your cake and eating it too.
Operations management and project management often have substantial overlap in activities and methods. However, one key distinction is that “operations” typically represent ongoing or repeated activities (such as running a factory or a manufacturing line within a factory), while “projects” are temporary and finite (such as conducting a research study on whether the factory should make a particular new product). See, e.g., https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/project-management-vs-operations-management/. (I used to work at a consulting firm where there were many project managers running short-term research or software-development projects for clients, and a few operations managers responsible for continual business functions such as invoicing clients and paying employees of the consulting firm.)
Right, other ways I’ve heard this described is operations is Business as Usual (BAU) and projects have a start date and end date. I’ve seen this important distinction when it comes to budgeting as BAU will be funded first with a certain % uplift of last year’s spend. Project costs tend to be more of a stab in the dark as it will be something that hasn’t been done in this iteration before (e.g. this location or population segment) and whatever will fit in the remaining budget plays a large selection factor.
Now programs....that’s like having your cake and eating it too.