A Product Owner Isn’t A Product Manager. Here’s Why It Matters.
Kyle Racki
I help business leaders create winning proposals at scale that close 2x the industry average.
A SaaS founder asked me recently, “What’s the difference between a product manager and a product owner?”
Some people think that product managers are just an interchangeable term for product owners, but this is not the case.?
The job of a product manager is to focus the team on solving the most valuable customer problems.?
They ensure the engineers are building things that matter to customers and will drive the business towards its goals. They talk to customers regularly, analyze data, pull together research, help the engineers break down work into manageable pieces, and make dozens of micro-product decisions to help the team hit their sprint goal.
Product management is a career, a discipline, and a craft just like software engineering, marketing, or design is.
Product management is the process of making sure that products are created with customers in mind and that they meet customer needs. It is an intersection between business strategy, engineering, marketing and design. A product manager may also think strategically and tactically about how to create customer engagement and delight through their products.
Product managers not only define what will be built but also prioritize what should be built first, determine when it should go live, measure the success of their efforts, and make changes based on those metrics.
Good product managers have to have strong communication skills as well as leadership capabilities so they can collaborate effectively with cross-functional stakeholders.
领英推荐
On the other hand, a product owner is just the name of a particular role within agile scrum.?
They provide clarity to the team about the goal. All work is derived and prioritized based on the Product Goal in order to deliver value to all stakeholders including those within their organization and all users both inside and out.
They manage the backlog, ensuring that it’s visible and understood. This person can be a developer or a QA. In the context of scrum, they are wearing the hat of “product owner”.
Think of it like a meeting where you designate a note-taker. “Note-taking” isn’t a career, it’s just a role within a specific context.
For more in-depth read Inspired by Marty Cagan
Why does the definition matter?
If you’re looking to hire a product manager, you want to understand the kind of person you need and that it’s a very senior role.
However, if you just need to designate someone on the team to play the owner role, that person doesn’t have to be a PM.
?????Trusted IT Solutions Consultant | Technology | Science | Life | Author, Tech Topics | My goal is to give, teach & share what I can. Featured on InformationWorth | Upwork | ITAdvice.io | Salarship.Com
5 个月Kyle, thanks for putting this out there!
Head of M&A Europe @ SD Worx | Strategic Growth | Leadership | SaaS | Scale up mentor @Birdhouse | Board member
1 年Nice article although I would challenge the fact of having a developer executing the role of a product owner, also a product owner can manage two or more sprint teams with clearly defining the boundaries of a part of the product for example for which they are responsible. But good stuff in any case ! Scaling means indeed bringing in product managers once founders outgrow their role or complexity kicks in.
Strategy, Execution, Scale, Healthspan, and Family
1 年Such a critical distinction. As the organization grows, this distinction becomes more and more important!
Sr. Product Manager @ Kaseya | 2X Failed Founder | ex-JPM
1 年It's fascinating to see how a startup can evolve when the right people are in the right roles. This article is a great starting point for any entrepreneur looking to make sure their product team is set up for success!
Curious Contrarian with more questions than answers
1 年Super important distinction. We use one of BA’s as Product Owner for a specific group of interrelated products, but we also have a full time Product Manager who is over all products. The PM has a role in pricing, packaging, contracts, roadmapping, financial metrics, etc. and works closely with senior sales and IT. The roles are related but actually quite different both in terms of skill set and Roles/Responsibilitiesz