Product Manager vs Product Owner

The Preface

What’s the difference between a Product Manager and a Product Owner? On the surface, the distinction may be as subtle as Ryu and Ken. If you simply Googled “Product Manager vs Product Owner”, you will most definitely get a search result full of blog articles that already settled this discussion. However, as a product manager who loves a good debate, I just had to put my two cents in it. Everything I share is purely based on my own experience, perspective and retrospective and I’m not in any way claiming that my point of view is the source of truth.

Round 1

External vs. Internal

The role of a “Product Manager” is often defined as the mini CEO of a product. It’s true, Product Managers have no formal authority over anyone, yet, are held accountable for when a product launch fails or when revenue goals fall short.  While other opinions have formed in the past year, for the most part I still believe that it’s healthy for Product Managers to maintain the mentality that they are the CEO of their product. Product Managers live and breathe by one cardinal rule: NIHITO. For those not familiar with this acronym, it’s a Pragmatic Marketing term that stands for “Nothing important happens in the office”. Product Managers create and drive the roadmap and ensure they are successful via hitting the product goals and metrics.  They typically work closer to sales, account management, and marketing and often talk to customers directly.

A typical day for a Product Manager might include: Responding to a Sh*t load of customer emails, Writing PRDs, Hosting a webinar, Wireframing an idea, Conference call with 3rd party Partners/vendors, Sharing roadmap updates with stakeholders and getting buy-in, Win/loss analysis, Jumping on a call with Account Manager, Project kick-off meetings.

On the other hand, the term “Product Owner” is most commonly used to describe a role within the Agile Scrum framework. The Product Owner is typically the business or project stakeholder that directs the Scrum team (Developers, QA) in terms of what to build and provides insights into user needs and wants. I like to make the analogy that Product Owners are the quarterbacks and the team’s success is often dependent on their ability to see the field and execute plays down the stretch.  Product Owners provide requirements to the team and ensure the team understands the them to its full extent so that the desired outcome is achieved.

A typical day for a Product Owner may include: Daily Standup, Writing User Stories, Backlog Grooming, Working with UX on prototypes, Doing research on future projects, Prioritizing the backlog, Collaborating with QA on quality issues, Putting out production fires.

Round 2

Responsibility Showdown

If your company only has a Product Manager or a Product Owner, that person is likely doing both internally facing and externally facing tasks and responsibilities. To make things even more confusing, some companies will have both Product Managers and Product Owners, but the latter will hold “Business Analyst” titles. In these situations, the Product Managers are the coaches and the Product Owners are the quarterbacks. The Product Managers are focused on the competition and gather feedback from the market to create a game plan for victory, while the Product Owners take those plans and ensure they are well-executed on the field.

Top 3 Responsibilities for a Product Manager:

1. Manage your Roadmap. Your roadmap is the compass that helps direct your company to the “North”, where you’ll be rewarded a big stash of cash for knowing your directions. Your ability to manage the short and long term strategy you set for your product will no doubt help your company reach its goals.
2. Know your customers. You are the advocate for your customers and need to speak for your customers in every decision-making conversation you have.  Your ability to share customer and market feedback/data will help you build trust and confidence with internal stakeholders.
3. Prioritize everything. You are the focal point of everything product and that makes you a popular person. Internal and external stakeholders alike will want time to talk to you about their priorities and what they believe are important. Your ability to say “No” without breaking trust will be determine your success as a Product Manager.

The Hadoken: Know your product inside out. You will not earn respect from any stakeholders if your sales team knows more about your product than you do. Becoming the SME is the bare  requirement to being a Product Manager.

Top 3 Responsibilities for a Product Owner:

1. Writing user stories & defending your requirements. Your primary job is to ensure that your Team understands the requirements and that it reflects the product vision. Your ability to break down high level requirements into consumable user stories will be key to success.
2. Manage your backlog. Your backlog is like your backyard, if you don’t cut your grass regularly, it will get out of control. Scheduling regularly backlog grooming to ensure your team understands upcoming tickets is essential. But it’s also good practice to keep your product backlog maintained in a clean, orderly fashion so that no requirements get left behind or forgotten.
3. Think like the user. The Product Manager isn’t around for the day-to-day stuff that happens during a sprint. Make sure you let your team know that you are the captain of your ship.  It is your responsibility to ensure that each User Story clearly captures the voice of the customer.

The Shoryuken: Develop a strong, unwavering relationship with your Scrum Team. Agile Scrum is a great framework to follow, but it is not a silver bullet. There will be challenging sprints ahead and you will need to lean on the strength of your team to pull through the storm.  People over process.  Human relationship over Agile Scrum.

Round 3

Strategic vs Tactical

To be clear, I’m not claiming that one role is superior to another, it really just boils down to your personal preference and what you enjoy doing more. Do you enjoy strategic or tactical work? Having worked in both roles in my career, I know that I prefer being in the market-facing Product Manager role because I enjoy setting the vision and working with the larger picture.  Others enjoy the opportunity to take the vision and iron out every single detail and strive for perfect execution. Regardless of which role you enjoy, remember that Product Managers and Product Owners are really two sides of the same coin, and you will not find success without having a great partner to work with!

K.O.

Bonus Round

Tips for Differentiating between Product Manager and Product Owner:

1. Learn about the organizational structure. Typically market facing product managers will report up to a Product Director or VP of Product while internal facing Product Owners will typically report to a Director of PMO or Development Director. At some companies, both roles will report up to the VP of Product, but in those cases, their title will most likely be “Business Analyst”.
2. Determine who will write the user stories. Product Owners are usually the ones who write user stories as that is a requirement for the role they play in Agile Scrum.
3. Confirm who prioritizes the roadmap. Product Managers will typically manage and prioritize the roadmap and ensure stakeholders are kept in the loop.

Now that you know the difference between a Product Manager and a Product Owner, remember to clarify your title, role and responsibilities with the recruiter/hiring manager the next time you are at a job interview to ensure that you’ll enjoy your next venture.

Don’t forget to put your new skills to test at Product Camp Dallas on March 10th, where you’ll have the opportunity to meet product folks with various titles, can you guess if they are a Product Owner or Product Manager?

By Will Kuo, Product Manager at Forte Payment Systems