Understanding the differences: Product Manager vs. Product Owner
My thoughts about both roles and a small content bonus.
- “Hi, Jeff. It's been a long time. I heard you're a Product Manager.”
- “Actually, I'm a Product Owner, not a Product Manager.”
- “Is there a difference between the two?”
- “Yes, there is. Let me explain.”
Though they sound similar, the roles of Product Manager and Product Owner are often confused because their responsibilities, skill sets, and contributions to the life cycle of a product are quite distinct from one another.
At the same time mutually coexist in the fast-paced world of product development. Moreover, they complement each other.
In this article, I will explain their roles and responsibilities and also explore some neighboring roles — Product Marketing Manager and Project Manager — in order to create a clearer picture.
Product Manager (PM)
Let’s start with the Product Manager. Compared to the Product Owner, their role is more strategic, while Product Owners act tactically. It’s like comparing a general and a colonel on the battlefield: both lead the troops, but at different levels of management.
Of course, the responsibilities may vary from organization to organization, so I will describe the most common functions of a PM:
The Product Manager knows everything about their product. They are the alpha and omega in terms of business use cases and functionality. Though they may not know all the technical details at the same level as engineers or technical executives, they always have solid answers to questions like “Why are we doing this?” and “What problems does our product solve?”
The Product Manager is a key person in communication between the Sales, Marketing, and Support departments. In some cases, they can help the sales team work with the most important customers or join a support call to better understand existing problems.
The Product Manager is a visionary who looks at least a couple of years ahead. They have a picture of the product's near future, the challenges that may arise, and ways to solve them. They sell the future to C-level executives in the form of product vision and product strategy.
The Product Manager creates and manages a high-level plan of product development in the form of a product roadmap. The roadmap is the practical implementation of the product vision and product strategy.
The Product Manager creates product documentation for the teams to use—vision, product requirement documents (PRDs), user stories, and other types of documentation based on the company’s established product development workflows.
In other words, PMs take into consideration the lifecycle perspective of a product to meet the customers' demand and business objectives over the long term.
Product Owner (PO)
Let’s continue with the Product Owner. While this role is related to the Product Manager, it focused more on the tactical aspects of product development. Here are most common responsibilities of the Product Owner:
Based on the organization structure, there might be one or more Product Owners, each of them responsible for their part of the product, and reporting to the Product Manager or VP of Product.
Contrary to the Product Manager, who works more with the roadmap, the Product Owner is intimate with the product backlog, prioritizes the features or tasks based on customer needs and business value, and always has the development team working on the right things.
The Product Owner is the voice of the customer. They listen to the stakeholders and users, interpret what they say into understandable and achievable requirements and direct the development based on those requirements.
The Product Owner closely cooperates with the development team. They attend daily stand-ups and sprint planning meetings. They also explain and support the team in understanding the goals and context of why something needs to be done. Sometime the Product Owner may also serve as a Scrum Master.
The Product Owner continuously refines the product backlog by making necessary changes based on newly gained insights, changing market conditions, or from stakeholder input. They make sure that at any instance in time, the backlog is up to date, aligned with the product vision.
The Product Owner during sprint reviews accepts or rejects work done by the development team, ensuring that features being delivered meet defined acceptance criteria and align with the overall product strategy.
While the PM determines the big direction, the PO ensures that such implementation is smooth and aligns with what was intended. As much as the Product Manager focuses on the "big picture," the Product Owner ensures all the finer details are well taken care of.
Some bonus content here 😍
Who Are Product Marketing Managers and Project Managers?
Product Marketing Manager (PMM)
Regarding the Product Marketing Manager, they take an intermediary position between the product management and product marketing, bridging the gap between the product and the audience. Consider the PMM to be the brand ambassador for the product.
Key responsibilities of the Product Marketing Manager include:
The product marketing manager defines and develops the go-to-market strategy to position the product appropriately to reach and capture the target audience. They develop messaging to highlight the product's unique value propositions.
Together with Sales and Marketing, the Product Marketing Manager also works over promotional materials, campaigns, and training resources that equip the salesforce to be effective at selling the product to the customers.
The PMM also does market research and competitor research to understand customer needs and market trends, providing insights that inform product development and marketing strategies.
Project Manager (PM)
Finally, there is the Project Manager. They play a critical role in product development, ensuring that projects are smoothly executed and timely delivered. The Project Manager acts like a conductor who coordinates all elements of the project.
The key roles of a Project Manager are:
Development and maintenance of project plans, including identification of any timeline, resources, and milestones that may be impacted to ensure the delivery of projects successfully. Demonstrate that all staff members clearly understand their roles and responsibilities assigned to them.
The Project Manager will monitor project progress, which may involve identifying and mitigating risks that could hinder such progress. He facilitates communication among team members and stakeholders to ensure alignment and information.
The Project Manager facilitates project reviews and retrospectives of projects performed, focusing on what went well and the areas to improve on for future project execution.
Closing Remarks
There is often no single, clear definition for the roles of the managers mentioned above. They intersect at some point, and sometimes deeply within the role. During my career, when I was a Project Manager at a software outsourcing company combining the role of Scrum Master with elements of Product Owner.
All these roles are equally important. There are products that do not have a dedicated Product Manager or Product Owner, usually startups. At some level of maturity, the organization hires a corresponding person to fill the expanding gap between the product, the development team, and customers.
If you are into product development and want to try yourself in a multi-tasking and product-oriented role with much communication and interaction with real people, then any of the PMs will be definitely interesting for you.