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Project Management and General Operations Management

Project management and operations management both involve managing budgets, schedules, staff, and skills development. However, they differ in key ways. A project manager has a temporary role focused solely on one project's goals and timeline. An operations manager has permanent, wider responsibilities for an entire department's ongoing functions. While project and operations managers intersect at times, their distinct roles are complementary - with operations managers providing resources and project managers delivering quality work.

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251 views

Project Management and General Operations Management

Project management and operations management both involve managing budgets, schedules, staff, and skills development. However, they differ in key ways. A project manager has a temporary role focused solely on one project's goals and timeline. An operations manager has permanent, wider responsibilities for an entire department's ongoing functions. While project and operations managers intersect at times, their distinct roles are complementary - with operations managers providing resources and project managers delivering quality work.

Uploaded by

deehimura2
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Project Management and General Operations

Management

General Operations Management

A general operations manager has a wider scope of responsibility than the project


manager — and the general operations manager role is permanent while the project
manager role is temporary. 

Operations management is an ongoing function in an organization that performs


activities that produce products or services. Operations are ongoing; some examples
include accounting and human resources. An organization needs those roles no
matter what initiative(s) they may be working on. There are three main types of
systems in operation and production management in both manufacturing and
service industries:

1. Mass production system

2. Batch production system and

3. Non-repetitive systems.

Mass Production System

Industries with high-demand products or services and high investment use the
product-oriented mass production system, which centers on the important
processes that help produce that product or perform the service. Special purpose
equipment, such as automated conveyors, are used to perform the functions needed
for the product or the service, making it very efficient in producing large quantities of

Batch Production System

When several products or services are required in the same factory, the batch
production system serves as a good alternative—especially when the demand is not
high, the investment is low, and when flexibility is a must. The system is adjusted
when production changes from one product to another. Here the complexity of
management increases over the batch production system, which is process-oriented,
where a mass production system is product oriented.

Non-repetitive System

Systems related to low demands are very different from the other two types; the
systems put more emphasis on planning, monitoring, and controlling the activities of
the product and/or services. The requirements of these systems result in the growth
of project management.

As you can see, the difference between product-oriented, process-oriented, or


project-oriented management is very thin and hard to define. To use a simplified
example, planning and designing a new car model is a project—whereas running a
factory that builds the cars is a mass-production system. When it’s time to change
the model of the car, it’s time for a more flexible and adjustable process-oriented
system.

Project Management

As given earlier, the very fact that the role of a project manager is temporary; a
project team is basically a short-term association. In a fixed general operations
management team, the team members report directly the manager who leads that
team; those member roles in the team will generally be long-term. The manager is
responsible for creating a good team working and setting the norms and behaviors
of the team. He/she needs to build trust and respect in the team, encourage the
sharing of information, opinions, and feelings for the benefit of the team, and set
targets to appraise the performance of the team members.

On the other hand, a project team will be made of people from different departments
across different sites of the organization. Though the project manager’s job is
similar, sometimes project team members may often report to the department
manager as well as reporting to the current project manager. As the priority of the
other departmental manager's changes, the project team’s stability can waver. 

It can be challenging to maintain teamwork as the team members may change every
now and then to accommodate the priorities of the departments. In a changing team,
the team members who do not know each other may find it difficult to share
information, opinions, and feelings openly. As the member often reports to more
than one manager, appraisal of his or her work may pose a problem or two.
The Connection between Operations Management and
Project Management

During a project life cycle, it goes through phases like initiation, planning, execution,
control & monitoring, closure, etc. At some of these phases, projects could intersect
with operations. Some of those are:

 At the phase of developing a new product, expanding outputs, or upgrading


a product
 At the product development process or while improving operations
 Until the end of the product life cycle
 At closeout phase
To implement the delivered work, information and knowledge are exchanged
between the project and operations during each phase. Also, according to the
book Practical Project Management for Agile Nonprofits by Karen R. J. White, there
are four areas for which operations and project managers both are responsible.
These areas include:

 Budget
 Schedule
 Staff Management
 Skills Development

Project Management vs Operations Management

The areas for which operations and project managers both are responsible (budget,
schedule, staff management, and skills development) are the same, but their
responsibilities are different. A descriptive analysis of the responsibilities of
operations and project managers in all four areas are as follows:
Budget

 An operation manager is responsible for the budget of a whole department


and the cost associated with it. It includes salaries, costs of managing and
maintaining their workplace, etc.
 A project manager is just responsible for the budget of the project that he
is currently working on. It includes revenue that is generated during the
tenure of the project.

Schedule

 The operations manager has day-to-day management responsibilities, and


many of those tasks will take place in a business as usual schedule.
 The project manager is only responsible for making sure that the project he
is managing is on time. It includes responsibilities like scheming a delivery
date, planning milestones, and then tracking the development. In short, he
ensures that all the tasks stay on track.

Staff Management

 The responsibility of an operations manager is wider in terms of managing


staff. His responsibilities include recruiting people into the department, on-
boarding new staff, and allotting people to projects according to their
qualities and characteristics. They are also responsible for approving leave
applications, dealing with absences due to sickness, or personal problems,
and all the other HR duties. They oversee projects but are also liable to
look after the performance on everything that is not related to projects.
 The project manager is not responsible for any HR issues like hiring or
firing. He is just accountable for overseeing the performance of his
teammates on the project work that he is managing. But he cannot take
any action if any team member is performing poorly. All he can do is report
the situation to the team member’s manager. Then it will be the
responsibility of the operational manager of that team member to look at
the performance issue.
Skills Development

 The operations manager is responsible for improving the skills and career
of his department. It could be through training, coaching, and mentoring
the staff.
 Project managers don’t necessarily have line management responsibility
for their team members. They just need to lend some extra help or
information if required.

Conclusion
Put simply, project management is unique and highly planned, yet unpredictable. The
principal difference between project management vs operations management is that
the project manager has a temporary role, which leads to some specific differences
and difficulty in the case of team-building effort.

A project manager and an operations manager may intersect at various areas of


duties, but their roles remain different. An operations manager works in a wider
context and thus, takes the responsibilities of management and related fields away
from the project manager so that he can solely focus on the current project.
However, both roles complementary to each other. A project manager cannot
achieve success in the project without the input of the operations manager as the
latter is responsible for the allocation of resources and the operations manager
relies on project managers for the quality of individual projects. Enroll in PMP
certification training to gain the best skills and practices that will take your projects
to glory, and give you the professional expertise in your project management career. 

Reference :

1. Verma E. The Difference Between Project Management and General Operations


Management., 2021
2. Brown L. Operations Management vs Project Management : What’s The
Difference?., 2021

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