Product Owner vs Product Manager

Introduction

A product manager is involved in the development of a product from idea to launch. When it comes to dealing with the development team, the product owner’s job is more focused.

The product manager or product marketing manager researches the desires and needs of customers, whereas the product owner ensures that product development adheres to the product roadmap. The product manager determines what will be developed or adapted, while the product owner ensures that the development team follows through.

Product Manager Role Definition

Promote and support the team, partners, and external stakeholders to ensure alignment with the product’s overall strategy and direction.

The product manager is a high-level position with duties spanning the whole product lifecycle, from customer discovery through delivery. The product manager steers the product strategy by gaining a thorough grasp of the customer’s demands, the product, and the market as a whole.

Customer representatives, product visionary, team champions, and strategic leaders are all qualities that a successful product manager should possess.

Product managers are often referred to as “mini-CEOs” because of their diverse job and strategic emphasis.

Product Owner Role Definition

Scrum, an agile methodology for producing and maintaining large products, coined the phrase “product owner.” A Product Owner is in charge of maximising the product’s value as a result of the Development Team’s work.

The product owner is solely responsible for backlog grooming. In addition, the product owner is responsible for the following responsibilities:

• Client complaints and concerns are converted into actionable user stories, which are prioritised and organised in the product backlog.
• Creates and prioritises production methods so that the development team knows where to concentrate their efforts next.
• Attends all agile and scrum meetings to ensure that development activity meets the plan set out by the product manager.
• Informs the development team about the customer’s voice.
• Gives the product manager comments on the verified roadmap.

Role and responsibility of Product Manager

Product management is in charge of a company’s product creation, launch, and ongoing maintenance and improvement. Long-term strategy, product vision, market trends, and fresh opportunity discovery are all part of a product manager’s job description.

The product manager is in charge of determining what to build next in its most basic form.

Some of the tasks of the product manager may be classified into the following categories:

• By performing user research and uncovering important insights, you may learn what people require.
• Create a long-term vision and plan for the product.
• Organize the team around a unified product plan.
• Choose which features to implement next.
• Deliver features that are both functional and enjoyable for clients.

We’ll go through the definitions of product managers and product owners from the instructional site Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD).

According to DAD, the product manager’s role in practice is strategic, and it’s “focused on the product’s long-term vision, on observing trends in the marketplace, on identifying new potential outcomes, on supporting the product’s sales/adoption, and on ensuring the product meets the needs of the value stream(s) the product is involved with.”

It also describes the involvement of the product manager in:

• Product marketing
• Supporting product sales
• Budgeting
• Long-term envisioning
• Customer care
• Supporting the solution-delivery team

Role and responsibility of Product Owner

According to Roman Pichler, a product management specialist, the product owner role may be traced back to the Scrum agile project management approach. As a result, product owners are more common in organizations that use the agile development technique.

The product owners fulfil their duties by engaging in tactical operations such as:

• Attending team coordination meetings
• Organizing demos
• Conducting adequate research to ensure that needs are ready to be worked on.
• Being involved with ongoing testing efforts

While the product manager has a more strategic position and is responsible for the whole product lifecycle, the product owner’s role is more focused and requires tighter collaboration with the development team.

Product Owner vs Product Manager Salary

Salary is one factor that might be considered when selecting who a firm requires. This might hurt annual budgets and profit margins.

A product owner earns an average of $100K per year, whereas a product manager earns an average of $112K per year.

• Salary of Product Manager

A product manager’s salary is determined by the number of years of experience, the quality of that expertise, and the company.

It can range from 10 to 50 LPA.

If the firm he/she joins us in the same domain as his/her exp, one may be a PM after graduating from a top B-school (2–4 years engineering exp) and be paid handsomely (25–30 LPA). The benefit of graduating from a top business school is that you will ultimately (8 years engineering + PM experience) be highly compensated (40 LPA).

• Salary of Product Owner

Product Owner salaries in India range from 7.9 lakhs to 31.0 lakhs per year, with an average of 17.0 lakhs. Estimated Wages are based on 3k salaries from Product Owners.

Product Owner salaries in India vary from 7.9 lakh to 31.0 lakh for those with less than one year of experience to 27 years of experience, with an average yearly pay of 17.0 lakhs based on 3k salaries.

Product Owner vs Product Manager

Product managers are tactical thinkers. They concentrate on the vision of the product, the company’s goals, and the market.

Product owners (who are common in agile companies) are more tactical. They take the product manager’s strategy and turn it into concrete tasks, working with cross-functional agile teams to get the job done.

Simply defined, the product manager determines which products to construct next, while the product owner assists the development team in completing the tasks.

The product manager’s job includes interacting with customers, among other things. The product owner, on the other hand, primarily collaborates with the production team to verify that development procedures are in line with the product roadmap.

The distinction between a product owner and a product manager is significant. While there is some overlap, they are both defined in quite distinct ways.

Conclusion

While there are many different perspectives on these jobs, I believe that most people would identify a Product Manager as a strategic employee that oversees the product vision and market from a high level, whereas a Product Owner is more tactical and would convert strategy into concrete tasks. Because the phrase “product owner” was coined inside the Scrum methodology, they are typically seen in agile organisations. A Product Owner is only useful inside a Scrum framework, but a Project Manager isn’t bound by Scrum and may function in a variety of environments.

Product owners and managers are valuable assets, but the struggle for final input must be fought based on corporate goals, consumer demands, and priorities. While it’s critical to define product management duties, you’ll also need to adapt.