Write an academic essay on How project management is different and differs from operational managemen

How Do Project Management and Operations Management Differ?

The Project Management Institute, better known as PMI, defines a project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Business operations, on the other hand, are ongoing activities that produce long-term, repetitive outputs, such as manufacturing products or supplying services.

Therefore, an operations manager’s role is ongoing, whereas a project manager’s role—in regards to a specific project—is temporary in nature.

Other key differences between the two positions are focused around specific responsibilities, skills, and education required for success.

Roles and Responsibilities

As part of their everyday roles and responsibilities, project managers are expected to:

Manage teams

Plan and define projects

Coordinate and oversee the execution of projects

Manage the schedule

Monitor the budget

Measure and report progress

The responsibilities of operations managers often include, but are not limited to:

Overseeing daily operations

Identifying and addressing problems and opportunities

Managing the budgeting, planning, reporting, and auditing

Ensuring regulatory compliance

Developing operational policies and procedures

How are Project Management and Operations Management Similar?

Given the differences in project management and operations management, it is also important to consider the areas in which they overlap.

Bolick provides some insight: “There are instances where the role of a project manager will intersect with operations management. First, when a need arises to significantly change a component of business operations then the change will often be managed as a project. Once the project has delivered the change, operations will resume focus on maintaining, operating, and supporting the products or services produced as a result of the project. Second, project managers and operations often collaborate at a project’s closeout phase to begin transitioning responsibility of any ongoing maintenance and operations associated with the deliverable or service.”

Write an academic essay on How project management is different and differs from operational management.

Title page

Introduction

Analysis of your topic

Evaluation of your research

Conclusions and recommendations

Bibliography

Supporting material:

q Previous Lecture notes for this module.

q Related websites e.g. APM, PMI, IWFM, CIBSE, JBM

q Reading list from the module guide

q Case studies used in the lectures

q Student research

q Own notes

Introduction

the definition of a project versus operations.

Project management in many years, remain unchanged, including a,b,c,d,e.

The definition of a project management, is to deliver a new

1. The focus of project management is on projects. All projects have a common feature, that is, one-off. Generally, after a project is completed, similar projects will not happen. Project management generally includes nine major contents: scope, schedule, quality, human resources, cost, procurement, risk, communication and integration;

Operation management is production operation management, with a larger scope. Operation management is from demand, design, trial production, production. The entire process from quality inspection, transportation, installation to after-sales service.

2. The methods of project management and operation management are different. The methods used in project management are generally management techniques and methods for specific tasks. Operation management is mainly management methods and tools for daily operations such as coordination between departments and issuing orders.

3. The objects of project management and operation management are different. As mentioned above, the objects of project management are one-time and special projects, and the main management is project evaluation, decision-making, implementation and control; operation management. The object is the decision-making, implementation and control of enterprise production and operation.

4. The project management and operation management cycles are different. The project management cycle is mainly the cycle of a project, and the cycle project of operation management is relatively longer.

5. The characteristics of project management are universal, purposeful, unique, integrated, innovative, and temporary. Operation management has been gradually and widely used in recent years, which makes operation management more global, while striving to do a good job Production and operation management can realize the organic unity of diversification and specialization, which is also the direction pursued by modern operations.

Project management is the manager of the project, under the constraints of limited resources, using systematic viewpoints, methods and theories to effectively manage all the work involved in the project. That is to plan, organize, direct, coordinate, control and evaluate the whole process from the beginning of the investment decision of the project to the end of the project to achieve the project’s goals.

According to the traditional approach, when an enterprise sets up a project, there will be at least several departments involved in the project, including the financial department, the marketing department, the administrative department, etc., and different departments will inevitably have friction in the operation of the project. , Need to coordinate, and these will undoubtedly increase the cost of the project and affect the efficiency of project implementation.

The project management approach is different. Members of different functional departments form a team for a certain project, and the project manager is the leader of the project team. Their responsibility is to lead his team to complete all the work on time and with high quality, and realize the project within the budget aims. The project manager is not only the executor of the project, he participates in the whole process of determining the needs of the project, project selection, planning and closing, and conducts the project in all aspects of time, cost, quality, risk, contract, procurement, human resources, etc. Comprehensive management, so project management can help companies deal with complex problems that need to be solved across fields and achieve higher operational efficiency.

The application of project management has rapidly developed from the construction, defense, aerospace and other industries in the 1980s to today’s computer, electronic communications, financial industry and even government agencies.

People usually think that project management is a product of World War II (such as the Manhattan Project). From 1950 to 1980, the main application of project management was the defense construction sector and construction companies. The traditional view is that the job of the project manager is simply to complete the set tasks.

Since the 1980s, the application of project management has expanded to other industrial fields (industry), such as the pharmaceutical industry, telecommunications sector, and software development industry. Project managers are no longer regarded as mere project executors, and they are required to be competent in a wider range of work in various other fields and possess certain business skills. The American Project Management Institute (PMI) has put forward the basic abilities that an effective professional project manager must possess:

Project scope management

Project time management

Project cost management

Project quality management

Project human resource management

Project communication management

Project risk management

Project procurement management

Integrated project management

Fundamentally speaking, project management is not a mystery. The organization and team activities carried out by humans for thousands of years can be regarded as project management behaviors.

1. Project scope management

is the management process of controlling the work content of the project in order to achieve the project goals. It includes scope definition, scope planning, scope adjustment, etc.

2, project time management

is a series of management processes to ensure that the project is finally completed on time. It includes the definition of specific activities, such as sequence of activities, time estimation, schedule and time control.

3. Project cost management

is the management process to ensure that the actual cost and expense of completing the project do not exceed the budgeted cost and expense. It includes the allocation of resources, budgeting of costs and expenses, and control of expenses.

4. Project quality management

is a series of management processes implemented to ensure that the project meets the quality requirements specified by the customer. It includes quality planning, quality control and quality assurance.

5. Project human resource management

is a series of management measures to ensure that the ability and enthusiasm of all project stakeholders are most effectively used and utilized. It includes a series of work such as organizational planning, team building, personnel selection and project team building.

6. Project communication management

is a series of measures needed to ensure the reasonable collection and transmission of project information, including communication planning, information transmission, and progress reports.

7. Project risk management

The project involved may encounter various uncertain factors. It includes risk identification, risk quantification, formulation of countermeasures and risk control.

8. Project procurement management

is a series of management measures taken to obtain required resources or services from outside the project implementation organization. It includes project work such as procurement planning, procurement and acquisition, resource selection and contract management.

9. Project integrated management

refers to the comprehensive and overall project management work and process carried out to ensure that the various tasks of the project can be coordinated and cooperated organically. It includes the formulation of the project integration plan, the implementation of the project integration plan, and the overall control of project changes.

In project management, the most important are the three elements of quality, duration and cost:

①Quality is a must and guarantee for project success. Quality management includes quality planning, quality assurance and quality control.

② Progress management is the process to ensure that the project can be completed on time. Under the guidance of a big plan, each participating unit prepares its own decomposition plan to ensure the smooth progress of the project.

③Cost management is the process of ensuring that the project is completed within the approved budget, including the preparation of resource plans, cost estimation, cost budgeting and cost control.

The process of project management

Project management can be divided into five process groups. The main objectives of each process group are:

(1) Initiation process group: Identify and approve the project or project phase.

(2) Planning process group: Determine and refine the goals, and plan the necessary course of action to achieve the project goals and complete the scope of the project to be solved.

(3) Implementation process group: Coordinator and other resources to implement the project management plan.

(4) Monitoring process group: Periodically measure and monitor performance, find deviations from the project management plan, and take corrective measures to achieve the project goals.

(5) Closing process group: formally accept products, services or results, and orderly end the project or project phase. The process group of project management includes project management sub-processes that are interconnected with their own basis and results, that is, the results or results of one process become the basis of another process.

Definition of operations management

Operation management is the planning, organization, implementation and control of the operation process. It is the general term for various management tasks closely related to product production and service creation. From another perspective, operation management can also refer to the design, operation, evaluation and improvement of the system that produces and provides the company’s main products and services.

Objects of Operation Management

The object of operation management is operation process and operation system. The operation process is a process of input, conversion, and output. It is a labor process or value-added process. It is the first object of operation. Operations must consider how to plan, organize and control such production and operation activities. The operating system refers to the means by which the above-mentioned transformation process is realized. Its composition corresponds to the material conversion process and management process in the conversion process, including a material system and a management system.

Operational management goals

The main objectives of enterprise operation management to be controlled are quality, cost, time and flexibility (flexibility/flexibility/agility), which are the fundamental source of enterprise competitiveness. Therefore, operation management plays an important role in business operations.

Especially in the past two to thirty years, the scale of production and operation of modern enterprises has continued to expand, the technology and knowledge intensity of the products themselves have continued to increase, the production and service processes of products have become increasingly complex, and the market demand has become increasingly diversified and varied. The increasingly fierce competition, these factors make the operation management itself is constantly changing. Especially in the past ten years, with the rapid development of information technology, new powerful methods have been added to operations, and the research of operations has entered a new stage, making it richer in content, wider in scope, and more complete.

The direct objects and purposes of operation management are: 1. The enterprise (organization, institution, unit, department), whose purpose is to maintain and monitor the strategy of the enterprise; 2. Shareholders (boss), whose purpose is to express and realize the will of shareholders; 3. Affairs , The purpose is to implement and solve all non-professional and technical public affairs of the enterprise; 4. Employees, the purpose is to satisfy employees’ services and reasonable expectations; 5. The system, the purpose is to customize and implement the system, and establish standards , Process control.

They all have the process of planning, execution and control; they all have resource constraints… But in PMBOK, this is strictly differentiated.

According to the definition of PMBOK: “A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.” (A project is a temporary work to create a unique product, service, and result).

Therefore, the project has at least the following two characteristics:

1. Temporary: The project is temporary work. What does it mean? It means that as long as the project is delivered (that is, the creation of unique products, services and results are achieved), the project is terminated. Therefore, the project has a start time and an end time, and the end time is marked by the delivery of the project (not when you want to end).

2. Uniqueness: The purpose of the project is to create unique products, services and results. What does it mean? It means that the delivery of the project must be unique and unique.

Operation is the general term for various management tasks closely related to product production and service delivery. The difference between it and project management lies in the definition of project management.

1. The project is temporary work, and the operation is continuous work. We often say that this is what we mean when the project is over and put into operation. For example, the construction of a convention and exhibition center in a certain place is a project and a temporary work. After the convention and exhibition center is delivered, the project will end. The opening of the convention and exhibition center is a continuous work, and there is no end time.

2. The project delivers new things and maintains new things in operation. Projects deliver unique products, services, and results, while operations deliver the same products, repeatable services, or maintain the stable operation of the system. Take website construction as an example. The project delivers a brand new website, and the operation is to maintain the website. Operation does not create new things (even if it is operated, it will create new things, but creating new things is not the purpose of operation).

3. Projects are budget-constrained, and operations are sustainably driven. Each project has a relatively fixed budget, and operations focus on costs and benefits in order to obtain profits to maintain the sustainable development of the system.

4. The project is completed by the project team, and the operation is completed by the functional department. Project management is completed by the temporary and changing project team, which is the responsibility of the project manager; while the operation management is completed by the stable and lasting company department and the department manager is responsible.

5. The project pursues the effect, and the operation pursues the efficiency. The purpose of project management is to complete the project, achieve goals, and therefore seek results. The purpose of operation management is to maintain operations and to pursue efficiency.

In the company’s organizational structure, some organizations’ business is mainly to do projects, and therefore project structure, such as decoration companies, management consulting companies, and event planning companies; some organizations mainly focus on operational work; therefore, it is a functional structure , Such as catering companies, daily chemical companies, shopping malls and supermarkets, etc.; some organizations focus on both aspects of work, so they adopt a matrix organization structure, such as telecommunications equipment companies…

If PMBOK is directly applied to active project management, then active project management not only includes the process of initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and closing, but also includes project integration management, project scope management, project time management, project cost management, and project management. Knowledge fields such as quality management, project human resource management, project communication management, project risk management, project procurement management, stakeholder management, etc., cover all activities and project management.

Project management is the function of an organization to initiate projects to meet business needs, achieve strategic goals or meet market needs. Projects are unique temporary tasks, with specific beginning and end.

Operational management is an ongoing organizational function that performs IT service management or accounting operation activities. The operating process is permanent, with repetitive output, aimed at improving efficiency, cutting costs and gaining a competitive advantage.

In the life cycle of a product or service, projects and operations do meet at various stages. It is important to use tools such as project management software to help encourage collaboration among team members and ensure efficiency.