Product Owner vs Project Manager: What's the Difference?
Product Owner vs Product Manager: What's the Difference?
The difference between a product owner and product manager is usually fluid – it might vary based on their size, industry, goals, and priorities.
For example, a new such as a SaaS startup follows the agile framework and the Scrum framework. They’ll usually try to hire a product owner early on in the product development cycle so that they can build the product management team. According to Scrum masters, smaller organizations hire product owners so they can hire a product manager.
However, the Scrum guide isn’t applicable in all cases. In bigger and established companies where there are already a lot of products in place, product owners play a secondary role to product managers.
On the other hand, even though both the product owner and product manager play very different roles and have unique functions, smaller companies may mix the duties and responsibilities of product owners and product managers alike.
For that reason, a more detailed comparison and contrast of the two is required.
1. Responsibilities of a Product Owner
The product owner’s overall focus is very detail-oriented. They tend to focus on the short-term and mid-term product development stages. Meanwhile, they’re also responsible for the execution of the entire product strategy.
However, their primary responsibilities are pretty straightforward. They are tasked with optimizing the entire product development process. That means they actively analyze ways to develop, implement, and act on a product strategy faster, quicker, and more efficiently.
Furthermore, they turn the product vision into an actionable backlog, meaning they’re responsible for converting product ideas into market actions. This is where the product strategy execution part usually comes in.
Lastly, product owners are also responsible for communicating the customers’ needs to the development team. This ensures that the development team adjusts and refines the product before launch. As a result, the final product that’s released in the market is the best possible version – one based on customer needs.
The product owner will be able to show you the entire action backlog along with information on what each action accomplished. They will also be able to show you user stories that helped them refine the development process by communicating customer needs.
The success of product owners is usually measured based on completed stories. Therefore, refining the development process based on customer research plays a vital role in a product owner’s success. Furthermore, the performance of the development team also helps assess how well a product owner did their job.
2. Responsibilities of a Product Manager
The product manager, on the other hand, plays a more holistic role when it comes to product management. Their overall focus stems from a strategic point of view. Their focus is mostly long-term, which is why they’re responsible for creating the grand vision of a product.
Based on the vision they create, product managers develop an entire product strategy that spans across the entire product roadmap. It’s applicable and relevant throughout the product lifecycle.
The primary responsibilities of a product manager start with the product vision. They analyze the product and the market, and based on their findings and the product’s value proposition, they develop a product vision.
After that, their job is customer discovery – where their market analysis comes into play. Based on the newly develop product vision, product managers now have to discover potential markets, customers, and buyer personas.
Afterward, they focus on product strategy. This includes feature prioritization and cross-team alignment. That means that product managers bring different departmental teams together to develop an executable strategy. Using prioritization, the strategy is divided into certain steps.
Typically, the average product manager would own the product roadmap that will showcase the entire product lifecycle and strategy. They would also be considered the pioneers of the product and its success.
However, their success is measured using hard numbers. The success metrics include NPS (Net Promoter Score) of the product, product conversions, revenue generated for the business, and the overall churn experienced by the business.
You can learn more about the difference between a product manager and product owner here: https://producthq.org/career/product-...
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