How many of you could clearly explain the difference between a Project Manager and a Product Manager? If you can, great! I would be interested to hear your thoughts in the comments. But if you are like the rest of us and are struggling to understand the difference, then continue reading.
In my experience I have noticed most organizations employ a “project” driven mindset. Where the story of a project typically goes something like this: project receives funding, define requirements, design, develop, QA, deploy, maintain, then sit back — relax — and hope you meet your KPI’s. As I’m sure you can tell, this is a traditional waterfall approach.
So how is a “product” any different from a “project”? In this post I will not explore the “how to…” of shifting to a Product mindset (I will save this for later), rather, my aim is to provide an educational view on the difference between both mindsets and let you determine for yourself how Product Culture could integrate into your work environment.
Let’s dive in first with a few definitions.
Projects…
- Are a series of activities underneath a broader plan.
- Have a defined outcome.
- Have a clear start and end date.
- Conclude when the the outcome is complete or accomplished.
Products…
- Are what you provide to a group of users — this could be a physical product, an application or a service.
- Are living and breathing, they iterate as new consumer behaviors and insights are captured to deliver the best experience possible.
- Do not have a completion date.
- Are never “done”.
I once heard a metaphor that does a good job of illustrating the product vs. project discussion:
Imagine all of the different players and stakeholders that are involved in a wedding. The wedding planner would be a Project Manager. They have a clear start date and end date, with a list of activities that need to be done and a well defined outcome — a successful wedding. After the wedding is over, the job is complete and the wedding planners job is done.
Now let’s explore the role of the bride and groom. They are Product Managers. Of course there are plenty of activities they have on their to-do list…invitations, guest lists, dresses, tuxedos, the list goes on. But the difference here is after the wedding is over, the product (their marriage) is not over. The wedding is only the beginning of a lifetime’s worth of iterations and learning. The wedding is a major milestone — yes, but it is not the end. If the bride and groom were to stop working on their marriage after the wedding was over, their “product” would fail.
In summary, a shift to a Product Culture is a shift to an Agile Culture. Where Projects operate in a world of SOW’s, deadlines and waiting 6 months until a single line of code is written, Products release new features and UI elements in short cycles called sprints. Products are living and breathing because they continuously learn about their user’s behavior. Products never have a done state because they are always iterating, growing, evolving — as markets shift and user preferences change.
If you are an organization operating within a Project mindset, I encourage you to consider Product Culture as a new standard of thinking if you have a desire to stay relevant in today’s fast paced marketplace.
