I was watching "The Offspring" on BBC America the other day, and I noticed that Data started his log entry with: "Second Officer, Science Log". But Data did act more like the science officer than the person responsible for allocating ship's resources—i.e. Ops Manager. Riker did that more as part of his XO duties (see "The Lesson").
The idea was that crew members seeking counseling would be more at ease with a counselor in casual garb rather than the militaristic uniform of the Federation's official space navy. Kor
Bu... Bu.... Starfleet isn't military I was in the Army, we all wore uniforms, the same uniform, if everyone is wearing the same uniform, it isn't intimidating. Also, so it was to not scare the patients, but only up until season 6 ( or whatever) when the Mean Captain made her wear a real uniform. After that date in time the patients would not be frightened.
As a fan of the original color schemes, the only logical solution would have been...... Captain Data, the fleets first Android starship Captain! Tactical/Security Officer Picard, the ships no nonsense third in command! Exploring all sorts of new crew dynamics!
Frankly, there's no mention of Data being the head of a department of any kind, which saddens me. I like to assume he was, just like I'd assume that Troi is a chief counselor, among a staff of "Other counselors" she's mentioned being on board It seems like operations management officer is mainly a bridge title, maybe, where just like the Tactical position is responsible for weapons, defenses, security, communications... the ops position combines sciences, engineering, & systems. In my head canon, since sciences tend to have their own specific departments, as does engineering, I imagine Data, in some way, oversees things like shuttle & cargo bay detail, transporter room assignments, ship area allocation schedules, or other general function stuff like that. All the boring stuff, no one ever talks about... That's what Data does, without it ever being brought up. I guess he's the cruise director lol
It's safe to say that Data was both Ops Manager and Chief Science Officer, as an android he was more than capable of fulfilling both roles easily--plus it means the producers didn't need to pay another actor to wear a blue uniform sitting at the back of the bridge. All female characters in catsuits look 100% better when in standard uniform. Troi, Seven and T'Pol were all still clearly curvy women when in duty uniform, they just looked more professional and integrated with the rest of the crew (why T'Pol wasn't in a Starfleet uniform after officially joining in S4 will always baffle me).