What in the Product are you? Owner or Manager, let's find out

 You've packed your bags and ventured into the world of product (not this blog, you've always been one of us), now you're looking for where to start.

You hear of product managers, product owners and get a bit confused. "Who am I managing, I'm not ready", "Ownership? Do they give me the product?". You need answers and you've come to the right place.

Let's dive in

Let's start from the Product Owner

THE PRODUCT OWNER

Superscrum - Our PO for the day. Hint: Scrum


Product Owner is a role with Scrum

A role/accountability in the self-managing Scrum team meaning you are nobody’s boss. You also don’t OWN the product, you are responsible for its value, you determine it. This is done primarily using the Product Backlog - an ordered list of what is needed to improve the product, created by the Product Owner.
The product Owner gives his team direction, communicates with stakeholders to elicit requirements but has the final say on what his team builds, he maintains communication with his developers, Scrum Master and stakeholders during Sprints - Timeboxed, max of one calendar month, Scrum Event where development is "done" to add value to the product; to continually update and refine his Product Backlog.

The PO is responsible for:
  1. Transparency, understanding and visibility of the backlog for the stakeholders
  2. Creating, ordering and communicating the Product backlog and determining product goal
  3. Representing the stakeholders during all parts of the sprint
  4. Managing economics
  5. Defining Acceptance Criteria with developers and verify that they are met
  6. Helping developers understand PB items
  7. Participating in all events except Daily Scrum
  8. Communicating with Stakeholders throughout Sprints
  9. Maximizing developers’ work
  10. Monitoring product progress (progress towards goal) and release progress
  11. Determining when a release can occur; among others
THE PRODUCT MANAGER

Now, let's talk about the Product Manager

Mr. PM. Friendly neighborhood PM
Who is a Product Manager?

A product manager is a person in a organization who makes sure the right solution, is built for a real problem, for the right market, in the right way. So they ensure that maximum value is being given to their customers within business constraints through effective and efficient communication across the board.
Similar to the Product Owner, the PM manages no one but the Product.

The Product Manager is responsible for:
  1. Envisioning, defining and crafting the customer experience
  2. Influencing what gets built and how it gets built
  3. Define Project vision - look, price and length of lifecycle and more.
  4. Analyze customer and market trends to reveal new opportunities to satisfy customer needs
  5. Providing insight into what the organization can bring to Market
  6. Maximizing profitability, envisioning performance throughout the life of product
  7. Communicating with and influencing internal and external stakeholders
  8. Creating product strategy
  9. Focusing on broad, strategic business goals
  10. Working with other stakeholders to create project strategy
  11. Touching every aspect of the product development and delivery - marketing, design and engineering, finance, release/fulfillment; among others
What they have in common:

They are both looking to maximize the value of the product, making the right decisions when working with other personnel to ensure that the right product is being developed; be it developers or the Head of Finance, the Scrum Master or the Lead designer, all their effort is channeled towards creating a brilliant product.

Can you be a PM without being a PO?

Yes, an organization that doesn’t implement the Scrum framework is not going to have a Product Owner, a Product Owner only exists as part of a Scrum Team.

What about the other way around?

At larger companies using Scrum with many roles, jobs and responsibilities, the role of a PO loses some responsibility and is charged to focus on optimizing their team’s work, enhancing team productivity, cross team dependencies and managing their backlogs, not to be concerned with the big picture of the product. So losing the responsibility of making big business decisions regarding what would benefit the customers the most but still being value-oriented as they work with their team(s).

Can you be both?

Yes, For example, in startups using Scrum, more often than not, the Product Manager plays the role of the Product Owner and vice versa, from requirement elicitation from stakeholders, communicating with designers, engineers, finance and other teams within the organization, creating and prioritizing backlogs and communicating with developers and stakeholders throughout Sprints. One person is responsible for the product’s success in its entirety.

In summary, a Product Owner could be said to be an Scrum Product Manager. The PM position is more of a job, for PO, a role, or according to the latest Scrum guide, an accountability within the Scrum Team.

Hope you enjoyed this crash course into the arenas of the Product Owner and the Product Manager. For more info regarding the Product Owner, check out the official Scrum guide here, to get certified, here's all you need and to learn more about Product Management, this Atlassian article is a good start.

That's all folks!!

If you have any questions or just looking for a new Product bud. Connect with me on LinkedIn. 

Have a good one!




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