Temporary

It may not always feel like it, but all projects have a beginning and an end. Some projects last a couple of weeks, while others could be considered mega projects and last for years in a global environment. No matter what, a project will always end. It may have been completed successfully or not. Some projects are even canceled due to budgetary constraints, a change in the market, or because the business need no longer exists

Because projects are temporary, they are not to be confused with operations, which are ongoing. An example of operations may be the day-to-day work necessary to keep an organization running smoothly. That could be anything from an automated payroll system in the human resource department or other functional departments, such as sales or marketing, that go about their daily work with very few changes.

Occasionally departments in an organization will run projects based on the internal needs of the department. For example, if your human resource department decides to upgrade their payroll system, that would be outside of normal business operations, and therefore it is a project. They may even assign someone from within their department to help manage the project.

In our example, it makes sense that once the payroll system is up and running and utilized regularly, it is then considered a part of operations because the project life cycle has ended.