Lessons · Project management · a project vs operations
A project is temporary work that makes something new
A project has a start, an end and a result that did not exist before; operations is the same work repeated to keep things running.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
The first question on any request is whether it is a project at all. A manager asks you to look after the new payroll system, and you need to know whether that means building it (a project, with an end date and a budget) or running it every month (operations, with no end). The two are planned, staffed and paid for differently, and mixing them is how a team gets a project budget for work that never ends.
How to think about it
Ask three questions: does it end, does it make something that did not exist, and could you say on some date that it is finished. Three yeses is a project.
Worked example
Request: move the office to the new building by MarchEnds in March. Makes a new state: everyone working in the new building. Finished when the last desk is in. A project.
Request: answer the help-desk phoneNo end. Makes nothing new; keeps the same thing going. Operations.
Request: cut the help desk's answer time from 4 minutes to 2 minutesEnds when the number is 2 minutes. Makes a new state. A project, even though it is about an operations team.
Your turn
Fill in the test for a project.
A project is , has a start and an end, and makes something that did not exist.
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Calling a project done when the work stops instead of when the result exists. The office move is not finished on the day the trucks leave; it is finished when people are working in the new building.