Are Product Managers Different than Product Owners?

Short answer is YES....... and no.

    

    If you're thinking about this question it means you're likely

• Looking to hire a product manager.
• Researching product careers.
• Learning about Agile.
• You clicked the wrong link 😉

    There are many reasons to be reading this article, but I should stop trying to cast predictions like a carnival fortune teller. 

    Some believe product owners and product managers are the same person, I think it depends on scale and how you designed the roles to work together. It's all about creating a product team to help drive the "WHY" of your organization into your products. If you're just starting out, it might make sense to have this be one person. If you're at scale with a great product vision, then maybe you need two people. I've been in both roles at the same time, just a product owner, and just a product manager. It depends on what the teams around you need at the time. 

With that said let's talk about why product managers and product owners exist as separate roles for some teams, how they are different, and how they should work together! 

 

What is a product owner?

    Product owners are people who understand product vision and strategy, feature intent, and keeps the scrum team aligned to each of these things throughout development cycles. They help the team digest large pieces of work into manageable efforts. They ensure the team is continuously aligned and working on what is most important right now.

What is a product manager?

    Product managers are people responsible for building the product vision and strategy. They create features by talking with architects, product owners, stakeholders, and most importantly the users. They ensure everyone is aligned to what needs to be done next. They create the direction for the product owner and determine what the teams should do to achieve great product market fit over the long term. 

PO & PM are a product version of a rally car driver and co-driver.

    Imagine yourself driving 100mph or 160kph on a dirt road, strapped into a metal cage hoping the person next to you just told you the correct way to turn next. Seriously, these guys are absolutely insane. They have to trust one another more than most people trust anyone in their lives. I'm not saying we as product managers and product owners have to take the same kind of risks as rally car drivers. But, comparing my job to rally car racing team makes it sound really exciting.

Who's the driver?

    The product owner is the driver. At least in this metaphor. The product owner is the one making the day to day decisions that can make or break the product experience. Regardless of how well a product manager gives direction the product owner is working directly with the team responsible for building the product. They have their hands on the steering wheel and can make the turn or not.

    The product manager needs to be the one anticipating needs, understanding where the product needs to go next. Charting the course relentlessly for the product owner and scrum team. There is always collaboration, at least there should be, between the product owner and product manager. But, the product manager is the one that enables others and creates clarity when the road gets rough. They tell you what turn is coming next. They should be aware of the next 3 turns as well.

    We tend to only consider the people in the car, but there is an entire team of people in the background making these amazing races possible. This is your scrum team. This is focused on the differences between a product owner and product manager, but I want to give a huge shout out to all those amazing scrum teams making visions and strategy come true! You all are the real heroes of the product.

Who does what?

    This isn't an all inclusive list, but it does demonstrate how the roles can work together. The question you need to ask is about scale! If you're starting out, having a single product manager or product owner in place can work. As you begin to scale the day to day execution and long term strategy both become larger efforts, having a PO and PM makes progressing both manageable at scale. 

    

    You probably noticed some of the areas have a check for both the PM and PO. These really depend on how experienced your product team is. Demos, feature writing, and even product vision can become collaborative especially if one of them has more experience in an area. It's also about what works for the team. Creating needlessly rigid responsibilities can cause frustration. Instead focus on what the PO and PM can accomplish together. The product's success relies on both of them. 

    

    Agile is a framework allowing you to build great products! Think of a PO and PM the same way. They enable you to build great products centered on value creation for your customers. How they accomplish that is really up to them to figure out. This is the heart of a great product team. 

It's less about who does what and more about what are WE doing and why!

    By adding PO's and PM's to teams you ensure the "Why" is known. The development team will be building for users needs today and ready for what users will need tomorrow. 

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