Operations management vs. project management — the operations services universe and its new project manager

Abstract

Current project management practices, stemming from research and development projects, ramping-up and optimization of production processes, and turnkey infrastructure delivery, provide incomplete answers to today's challenges in operations services management. The arena of long-term and ongoing operations services poses new challenges. From empirical studies involving many "managed services" (or outsourcing) operations projects in the telecommunications industry, this paper deducts fundamental differences between the definition of a project and classical project management requirements, and an operation with its new operation management needs. We discuss the critical success factors for operations management and propose measures for organizational changes, concluding that operations services projects require a project management different from the traditional, and proposing a framework for a more efficient operations management.