Project manager vs. product manager

Both these roles have a lot in common. Even projects are usually related to products. However, project management and product management are two completely different areas of expertise. What are the differences between them? Let’s have a quick project manager vs. project manager comparison.

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To understand the differences between project management and product management, you have to know the difference between a project and a product. Let’s start with the product. In general, it’s everything that your company offers. Products can be physical or digital, and they are designed to satisfy the needs of a specific group of users. So, in other words, when you go to a particular company’s website and you go to the “offer” section – you see that company’s products. When you go to a brick-and-mortar store, you see products. And even when you go to Google Play to download a new app, you also see products.

The project, on the other hand, is a specific endeavour that a company (or a department within it) pursues in order to achieve a specific outcome. Again, here are some examples. When you decide to hire a new employee and start a recruitment campaign – that’s a project. When you want to create a new department in your company – that’s a project. Even when you move your organisation to a new office, that’s also a project. Every marketing campaign, every workshop, every conference – these are all projects.

What are project managers responsible for?

Project managers are responsible for making sure that the entire project is executed and finished as agreed and that the desired outcome has been successfully achieved. It’s a typical management role – project managers oversee other employees working in the same department or group and manage their daily tasks and responsibilities.

Project managers must balance the project’s resources, timeline and quality. Moreover, they are responsible for planning and allocating project-related assets (employees, software, workshops etc.). The goal is simple – every project manager has to deliver the best possible outcome and, ideally, do that in the shortest time and for the least amount of money.

As we mentioned earlier, project managers frequently work with product managers. What does such a cooperation look like? Project managers take the initial vision for a new product and work on it using different projects to develop this final shape and, as a result, obtain a brand-new fully-functioning product.

What are product managers responsible for?

While project managers can work on many different projects, product managers are typically assigned to just one particular product. That’s why product managers are sometimes called product CEOs. It’s a comprehensive and strategic role that aims at creating and updating one specific product so that it fulfils customers’ expectations and is demanded by the market. Product managers have to know the product inside out so that they know how to improve it, deal with possible problems and spot opportunities to make the most of it. Product managers need to know how to ensure the product’s success and how to mitigate involved risks. Additionally, product managers usually have to:

Monitor the market
Create a roadmap leading to a ready-made product
Optimise and update their products when needed

As you can see, although these two roles are quite similar, a project manager plays rather a tactical role. In contrast, a product manager is responsible for the entire product, which makes this profession strictly strategic.Do you want to know more and project and product managers? Read the full version of this article