“Ops people” all tend to get lumped together in the same bucket.
But there are really 2 flavors of ops people:
Project Ops people — Those who are good at putting process in place
Flow Ops people — Those who joyfully and reliably can execute and incrementally improve a process
Ops people are usually one flavor or the other. To some extent these are not just skill sets, but personality traits. Of course, some people are talented at both, but it’s rare.
The most junior level ops employees in an org are almost always flow ops, and the most senior almost always project ops. Where things get weird is in the middle. Middle managers are often hired from within the ranks of junior operators. Some are promoted because they’re great at their jobs in flow ops; but then, they may struggle to transition to project ops. Some are promoted because they reached beyond flow ops and proved capable at project management; but they may get bored managing the routine.
Some of my biggest failures as a manager have been expecting flow ops people to do a project ops job, or vice versa. The former situation is especially tough, because opportunities for flow ops people eventually cap out; senior roles are almost always some form of project ops.
If you’re managing ops managers, it’s worth asking yourself — what flavors of operators do I have on my team? And am I setting them up for success?
What if you're a junior and expected to do flow ops, but you're bad at flow ops and really good at project ops?