What is the difference between Product manager, Product Owner and Project manager?

With the emergence of new professions in IT and Agile approaches, there are more and more questions and misunderstandings about what Product Manager, Product Owner and Project Manager do. Some people think that they are one and the same thing, mixing these notions.

Confusion and more misunderstanding is caused by companies that post Product manager job openings with a set of Project manager responsibilities and vice versa.

I suggest to understand who does what, and what is the goal of each participant of the product creation process.

Types of companies

To begin with, there are different types of companies: product companies and service companies.

Grocery companies - are those companies that are engaged in the development of a product, launching it on the market and its further development.

For example, Google or Meta - they create their products for mass use. Before starting to develop a product, product managers study the market and the needs of potential customers in that market. This allows them to understand what functionality needs to be added to the product to attract as many customers as possible and how to monetize the product.

As a rule, product companies have their own development, marketing, sales, and support teams. These teams can be distributed, i.e. located in different countries. They can also be part of service companies - we will consider this below.

Service companiesare essentially doing the same thing, but the difference is that the product idea and all responsibility for product development lies with the product company or customer.

For example, there is a client company that needs to create an online shop to sell clothes. This company goes to a service company and asks them to create an online shop that would allow them to sell their products worldwide. In this case, they need a product that will only be used by their employees and they don't need to create a product that will later be available to other users and they will make money from it. This is pure outsourcing. And here the work of a project manager, who monitors the progress of the project and its deadlines, helps a lot. Project manager interacts closely with the development team and guides the team in terms of deadlines.

In this case, by the way, the product owner can interact with the development team. According to the Agile manifesto, a product owner is a person on the customer side who has an understanding of what needs to be added to the product. At the same time he does not have technical skills and is not part of the development team. Product owner sets the requirements and accepts the work. And the scrum master works directly with the team. But this is a topic for another article.

Also, product companies turn to service companies for help. This happens when a product company wants to find a development team in another country and reduce the cost of development.

For example, a product company from the US wants to find a development team from Moldova because the cost of development in Moldova is much lower than in the US. And to overcome the difficulties with hiring and legalising a business in an unfamiliar country, it is easier for a US company to turn to a Moldovan service company that can assemble a team faster and formalise it officially. Usually this team becomes part of the US team and reports fully to the US managers. This is called outstaffing.

It is not uncommon for service companies to decide to create their own products. These companies are then called mixed companies. They are both product and service companies. That is, they provide product development services to their customers, and at the same time they create and develop their products with their internal dedicated teams. 

Peculiarities of work of product manager and project manager 

Now I propose to go to the responsibilities and peculiarities of the two professions in more detail. I have already listed the responsibilities of a product owner, because formally it is considered a role in the Scrum process. Again, these descriptions vary from company to company. I will try to describe them from the point of view of my experience.

He can be helped with that project managerThis may also be the job of a product manager, depending on the type of company. This can also be part of the product manager's job, it all depends on the type of company. But this is the main difference between product and project manager. Project manager is responsible for delivering the product within the agreed timeframe. Strangely enough, project managers do not need to have deep technical skills.

Yes, they should understand the product development cycle. However, I believe that both product and project managers need to understand how a product is created at least at a high level in order to speak the same language with developers. That is, a person with an IT education is in a more favorable position.

Over the last couple of years, customers have started to entrust the product part to service companies, so product management has also become part of the services provided to customer companies. In other words, product companies can ask a product manager from a service company to do market research, brainstorm ideas and draw up a list of required functionality.

An important part of working with a product is its further development. And here the product manager must use all his analytical skills and knowledge to be able to evaluate the results of the developed functionality - how useful it is for users and how profitable it is.

Therefore, product managers should be able to use analytical systems, validate hypotheses and draw appropriate conclusions from them, on the basis of which to make decisions on the implementation of new functionality in the product.

A project manager can also work in a product company if, say, the company has a large and complex product.

For example, I worked in a company where one of the products was a system for taking sales orders. We had many clients who had their own business processes and, accordingly, needed their own specific customisations. While working on the main version of the product, our team added new functionality in such a way that it could be configured for the needs of different clients. However, this was not always enough. And there was a need for additional development teams that created functionality separately for each client. There were project managers who controlled the work of the team allocated for a particular client. They monitored the deadlines and reported to each client separately.

Simply put, product manager answers the "What and Why?" questions, project manager answers the "When?" question, and product owner is the role in Agile that the customer fulfils by owning the business requirements for the product.

Responsibilities of a product manager

Product manager plays an important role in the creation and successful development of a product in the market. Let's take a closer look at each of the stages of a product manager's work:

• Market and target audience research: The initial stage in which the product manager gathers all the necessary information about the market, competitors and customers. This allows a better understanding of the needs and expectations of the target audience.

• Building a strategy and developing an action plan: Here the product manager defines the product strategy and creates the action plan. He sets priorities, defines goals and objectives for the team.
• Creating a product roadmap: The product manager draws up an action plan and prioritises the development team based on the business objectives. For example, in some companies, the most important thing is the speed of hypothesis testing.
• Description of product requirements: Product manager describes the requirements for the necessary functionality, based on which the development team will work to create a new product.
• Supervising the work of the design and development teamProduct manager monitors how the work is going, what difficulties arise, what can be improved, e.g. hiring another developer. 

• Conducting MVP testing - minimum viable product. At this stage, the product manager evaluates the effectiveness of the product and looks for opportunities to improve it. He analyses sales and marketing indicators, and conducts interviews with customers. For example, he collects user stories: what difficulties users had, where exactly they clicked, what features turned out to be unnecessary, and so on. Then he turns them into tickets - tasks to be worked on by the development team.

The work of a product team is most often divided into sprints, working according to the Agile methodology. As a result of the sprint, which is planned and led by the product manager, the product should have a clear artefact - value. That is, something tangible: a new button, a new feature, or an improvement in the user experience.

Required hard skills Product manager required:

• Ability to conduct market research and competitive analysis
• Mastery of techniques for collecting product data and user scenarios
• Defining goals and building plans for product development
• Skills in describing tasks for the development team
• Knowledge of Agile methods such as scrum, kanban, lean and others

Product manager soft skills required:

• Strategic thinking
• Leadership
• Communication skills
• Negotiating
• Conflict resolution
• Time management skills
• Empathy for users
• Delegation

Responsibilities of a Project Manager

Project manager plays a key role in project management in a company. His or her tasks may vary depending on the specific project and company, but in general, the main tasks of a project manager include the following:

• Project planning: One of the main stages of a project manager's work. It defines the project goals, objectives, resources, timelines and budget. Creating a detailed plan helps to ensure that the project is carried out in a structured way.
• Resource management: The Project Manager is responsible for assigning and managing the resources needed to complete the project, including team members, budget, equipment and other resources.
• Identification and management of risks: Identifying potential risks and developing strategies to manage them is an important part of a project manager's job. This includes identifying risks, developing action plans to mitigate them and monitoring their implementation.
• Team management: The project manager creates and manages the team, assigns tasks, ensures communication within the team and resolves conflicts. He or she may also train and motivate team members to achieve project goals.
• Monitoring and control: The project manager continuously monitors the progress of the project against the plan. If deviations occur, he or she develops correction plans and takes action to correct the problems.
• Communication and reporting: The Project Manager ensures effective communication with stakeholders (customers, project participants, company management) and provides regular progress reports.
• Project completion: At the end of the project, the project manager evaluates the project results, analyses the execution process and draws lessons for future projects. He or she may also be responsible for formally closing the project and handing over the results to the customer.
• Change management: During the course of a project, changes in requirements, objectives or conditions may occur. The project manager must be able to adapt to and manage these changes so that they do not adversely affect the project outcome.

Required hard skills Project manager:

• Planning work to create or finalise the product
• Project content management
• Conflict resolution
• Ability to focus on what's important
• Analysing the information
• Risk and change management
• Working with budget and financial indicators

Project manager soft skills required:

• Leadership
• Communication skills
• Negotiating
• Conflict resolution
• Time management skills

The irony is that it doesn't matter what your job title is - it's important to understand what you enjoy doing most, so that you can do something that brings you pleasure, benefits the company and all users of the product. So when looking for a job, read the job descriptions more carefully to understand who the company is looking for and how much it resonates with you personally.

I wish you success in any profession no matter what it is called!