Product Owner vs Project Manager in FinTech. Part 1
Well being honest sometimes I get such assignment which called as a project manager but in the reality it is pure a product owner role. Another story is when a position assumes both roles as PM and PO in one person, it is hard but possible.
The common things for both Product Owner and Project Managers are these people work with the team to reach a common goal: deliver the project or product on time and with high quality, staying in a budget.
The requirement of a Project Manager or a Product Owner depends on the structure of the project and the market requirements, resources to build it. Let’s consider deeper what makes positions unique and how they differ from each other.
Who is a Product Owner?
According to the Scrum Guide: “The Product Owner is responsible for maximising the value of the product and the work of the Development Team. How this is done may vary widely across organisations, Scrum Teams, and individuals”.
Let me remind you the main responsibility of a Product Owner is to manage the Product Backlog, what includes:
- Clearly expressing Product Backlog items;
- Ordering the items in the Product Backlog to best achieve goals and missions;
- Optimising the value of the work the Development Team performs;
- Ensuring that the Product Backlog is visible, transparent, and clear to all, and shows what the Scrum Team will work on next;
- Ensuring the Development Team understands items in the Product Backlog to the level needed.
Thus the Product Owner is accountable for all work mentioned above. There are various customers and users, and it is very important that the product owner has a proper understanding of their needs as well as the business domain.
The Product Owner is a key role who stays in touch with all the stakeholders (users, customers, marketing, sales, senior management, or customer support), represents their desires and keeps them connected with the development team.
Let’s consider the main duties in details:
- Deliver a clear vision of the project;
- Negotiate the priorities, budgeting, scope, and schedule.
- Share the risks, issues and dependencies with the stakeholders.
- Defining the features and specifying the requirements of the product;
- Prioritise the features of the product;
- Adjust the features and re-prioritise them if it’s needed after every sprint;
- Lead the product backlog and order work in the product backlog;
- Ensure that the product backlog list is clear, transparent and visible for all participants;
- Define and announce releases;
- Keep the all well informed of the upcoming status as well as get their feedback.
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