Project vs Product — How to Make the Difference?
We are living in the decades of product gaining more and more popularity. We can find lots of books about product management, product discovery and product growth. There are lots of online resources to develop skills at nailing the product development. We are reinventing ourselves and we call ourselves product managers or product owners.
But do we really understand the difference between a product manager and a project manager? Do we really apply in reality what we read/learn from the books and trainings?
My dear colleague, Ari, created an awesome diagram to better describe the difference between a product manager and a project manager.
Can you relate to his post?
Let’s take a step back and go back to the basics to better understand the differences between a product and a project, by taking practical examples from our everyday work in SEAT:CODE, as daughter company of SEAT SA.
SEAT & Cupra is an automotive company that is building cars. One of their biggest factory is close to Barcelona, Spain which is producing about 10k cars a week.
Imagine how complex is their manufacturing process, since every 2 minutes a newly produced car is exiting their production line.
Based on our business complexity, let me share an example of a Product and Project from the factory.
Project: improve the assembling line by adding dedicated spaces, where the cars that have failures during the production process can be easily stored, so that the assembling line is never stopped. In any factory is crucial that the production line is never stopped, as it implies huge revenue losses.
Why is this a project?
- scheduled within a fixed timeframe: 6 months
- has a targeted output: add dedicated spaces in the production line
- predictable: it is defined by sequential tasks and planning to create the spaces in the production line
- aims clear ROI improvement: the investment of creating this spaces promises reducing the risk of stopping the production line and revenue losses
Product: tool to manage warehousing processes for any kind of asset. The tool is used inside the SEAT factory to manage the warehousing of the newly produced cars. The need of the tool was clear the moment that the cars were stored inefficiently in the parking lots and couldn’t be easily tracked down, based on different needs.
Why is this a product?
- not constrained by a timeframe: it’s a tool continuously being developed to manage the warehousing of any kind of asset, not only cars. The user segments benefited by the solution can increase during the product lifetime.
- outcome driven: improves the warehousing of the newly produced cars and reduces space inefficiencies, improves eliminating manual work and adding visibility and control over the parking spaces
- adaptable: the tool evolved from an initial problem space statement at the factory to manage the cars warehousing and evolved into managing the warehousing of any kind of asset
- aims to bring value: the tool started by solving one specific problem found in the factory and evolved to manage any kind of asset, where investment was driven by the value the tool brought to it’s users.
Lastly, why should we care about the difference?
By having a clear understanding on what we build (Product or Project), our teams improve their success thanks to having clear expectations and improving their accountability over the work done. In the end successful teams create successful products.
